Review: Enthuse Fundraising and Events

When lockdown kicked off in March 2020, event managers at charities across the country suddenly found their work up in the air. Would all the year’s events be cancelled, or would this pandemic be over as quick as it came? And if events were cancelled, what did that mean for fundraising? 

• What is Enthuse?
• How much does it cost?
• What are the benefits?
• The bottom line
• Book a demo

As with everything else in the charity sector, events adapted. Virtual events were held in lieu of the usual in-person affairs, and with demonstrable success. Macmillan Cancer Support’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning raised £10 million, despite having to be adapted to the various local COVID-19 restrictions across the country and the different comfort levels of those participating.

Still, it has not been a perfect process. In 2019, Macmillan’s Coffee Morning raised £27.5 million – nearly two thirds more than the amount raised in 2020. 

This is where platforms like Enthuse help. When SSAFA, the Armed Forces Charity, changed their 13 Bridges challenge into a hybrid event this year – with people walking ten miles both in their local areas and across the bridges of London – they used Enthuse to help recreate the sense of community for their audience regardless of how they were participating. 

With Enthuse enabling SSAFA to create an effective email campaign, sending videos and content to remind participants of what they were funding, SSAFA was able to raise £75,000 through the event, yielding huge success with their hybrid approach. 

More than a third of people say they are likely to take part in a charity event in the next six months, according to Enthuse. With Christmas just around the corner too, it is a great opportunity for fundraisers to hone their fundraising skills and explore how they can hold hybrid events with a difference. (Maybe even Santa can join in some of them, with the help of Enthuse’s Santa Dash virtual routes.)

What is the Enthuse Fundraising and Events Solution?

You can host any manner of event through Enthuse’s fundraising and events solution – virtual, in-person, or a mixture of the two. It is no longer the case that your supporters need to be geographically close to take part in an event. Like the Santa Dash, Enthuse offers Virtual Journeys – map-based challenges which can help your charity reach and interact with new audiences, wherever they are.

To date, Enthuse has provided the technology for 20,000 successful events and can help charities make the fundraising process as easy as possible for every participant, wherever they’re joining from. 

The fundraising and events solution can help charities keep their branding consistent across all of their output, stay in control of their email plan, and access all their data in one place, including who has signed up and who has been raising funds for them.

How much does it cost?

Enthuse is very transparent about its fees on its website. The events platform starts at a flat fee of £29.99 + VAT per month – that’s £35.99 altogether – and comes with Enthuse Fundraising at no extra cost. It also includes Virtual Events and Virtual Journeys as well. 

If paid annually, it’s £299.99 + VAT, a monthly saving of around £5 but with the extra commitment of using it for a whole year. 

There is also a fairly complex, but flexible, fee structure. Using Enthuse Events’ default tipping model (which asks supporters for a voluntary contribution to help towards fees), charities do not pay a platform fee, but do pay a payment provider and Gift Aid service fees on the fundraising side (1.9% + 20p and 5% respectively). 

There is also a 3.5% + 75p fee for event registrations (no fees for free tickets), though charities can ask supporters to cover these using the Registrant Fee Cover option, which has a 75% opt-in rate on average. So for every £10 ticket you sell, you pay Enthuse £1.10, less if Registrant Fee Cover is chosen.

What are the benefits of the Fundraising and Events Solution?

More brand recall

In a world where donors are 35% more likely to remember the name of the cause they donated to if completed through the charity’s website, the importance of branding can’t be understated. Enthuse allows charities to include their branding through every part of the user journey, presenting a more consistent experience for supporters and driving higher brand recall.

More sign-ups

The easier it is for people to sign up for your event – and with Enthuse, it is very easy – the more sign-ups you are likely to get. Enthuse automatically creates fundraising pages when supporters register for the event so charities don’t have to chase participants to set up their fundraising pages. 

For fundraisers, this means they are encouraged from the word go. Automatically creating the page for them leads to a 100% page activation rate and supporters don’t have to go through a laborious process before they can hit the ground running – maybe even literally, depending on the event!

More activity 

The simplicity of the process means that your fundraisers have more time to raise money for your cause. They don’t have to sign up to multiple platforms and the ability to link apps like Strava to their pages creates a sense of togetherness and healthy competition. 

Fundraisers can also join teams, driving more registrations for people joining up in local areas or with their friends and family, and strengthening support relationships by celebrating and gamifying their achievements.

These are just a few of the benefits that the Enthuse platform has to offer. There are more, including the ability to create discount codes, target people who started signing up but did not complete the process to encourage them to do so, and create waiting lists if your event gets booked up – a great problem to have, in anyone’s book!

The bottom line

Enthuse is a straightforward and comprehensive platform for holding fundraising events. Its fees are easy to find online but most noteworthy is its simplicity and intuitiveness, which means that charities of all capabilities can quickly hit the ground running whether their event is virtual, in-person, or a blend of the two.