About Fundraising
Volunteer Fundraisers
Anyone soliciting donations for Bridge Foundry or a group in our network needs to sign a Volunteer Agreement as a Volunteer Fundraiser. This ensures that you understand our policies for fundraising. One of the important points in the policies is that Bridge Foundry generally only accepts unrestricted donations. We ask that chapters and communities within our network explain this to donors appropriately.
Types of Donors
Most Chapters and Communities raise funds for their activities primarily via corporate sponsorships. Once your group has a Volunteer Fundraiser signed up, they can reach out to companies in your area who might be interested in supporting your activities.
Volunteer Fundraisers can also raise money from individual donors if desired.
Methods of Payment
Regardless of whether you are receiving donations from a company or an individual, our options for accepting payments are the same. Most of the time the Volunteer Fundraiser will submit an invoice request and we will send the donor an invoice that can include payment options of check, ACH bank transfer, and credit card. Learn more about how to do this on the invoice request page. We also offer PayPal buttons for Chapters. We can't accept cash donations.
Crowdfunding & Other Methods
If you want to raise or process donations in any method different from those explicitly outlined in this operations guide, including crowdfunding, please contact us at finance@bridgefoundry.org and we will explore options with you. We need to make sure that any new approach fits in with our policies and procedures before moving forward, and our goal is to support you however we can. There's more information about Employer Match Programs in particular on this page, but in general we still want you to contact us about those too.