Got Questions? We're Here to Help

Simple Raise is part of the Accessible FinTech world, creating affordable, self-serve tools that don’t require a contract or a lengthy sign-up process. It is designed to streamline your fundraising efforts, whether you're a band director, a team coach, or part of a community group. We see the lifecycle of each task and design ‘assistant like’ features around them to help you get more done in your day. We’ve integrated Simple Raise with our sister platform, CutTime to further streamline rostering and financial tracking of fundraisers using the simplest and most powerful methods of cash and product-based donation solicitation in the industry.

To create a fundraiser on Simple Raise, simply sign up and follow the step-by-step instructions to create your organization and then set up your first fundraiser. You can then invite students and parents to participate and start raising funds.

Yes, currently there is a modest platform fee of 10% for using Simple Raise, which is paid at the conclusion of each fundraiser, based on the actual amount raised. There is no up front cost to set up or maintain your Simple Raise account connection with CutTime and you can create and run as many fundraisers and stores as you want. Donors can also choose to pay a 3.5% convenience fee to offset costs for the organization when making a monetary-only donation.

We use Stripe, which offers the best online payment solution in the market and was named one of Forbes 10 Best Credit Card Processing Companies. Their standard payout is two business days and the funds can be deposited directly into your school, booster club, or organization's account. They provide one of the industry's highest levels of security and reliability and the lowest fees for handling transactions. The convenience fee based on market conditions is typically paid by the donor for monetary-based donations, not the organization raising the funds. This way you maximize the funds raised against your program goals.

The current convenience fee for Simple Raise is 3.5% per transaction processed.

Absolutely! You can set individual as well as team goals for your fundraising participants. We recommend that you review these goals with each person prior to starting the fundraiser as well as periodically during the fundraising campaign. If you are using Simple Raise with your connected CutTime account, then your fundraising goals are pre populated based on the outstanding balance amounts listed for your program members. You can modify and adjust these goals to suit your preferences.

The length of each fundraiser powered by Simple Raise is up to you. You can choose to run it for a specific period of time or leave it open-ended.

You invite students as PARTICIPANTS in the fundraiser. Simple Raise facilitates instant import of student members for users with connected CutTime accounts. We recommend that you have your students invite parents-guardians as well as alumni as DONORS. This approach helps to increase participation and the total amount of money raised.

You will have access to fundraising metrics for each student via a dashboard. Plus, we have all the reports you need to comply with all district and state compliance guidelines.

We highly recommend using email, text messaging, and social media to promote your fundraiser. If you are using CutTime, you can also send periodic fundraising updates to your students and guardians via Announcements. Read our tips & tricks page here for additional promotion inspiration and advice.

Yes! Your program’s brand is a HUGE asset to your fundraising efforts. Make sure to add a quality image of your program’s logo / emblem and select your brand colors. Even better, upload a photo gallery and video about your organization so donors will understand your needs. As we evolve Simple Raise, we’re looking at additional ways to heighten your program’s visibility and fundraiser promotion.

You can create a store to sell a single product or a handful - it’s up to you! For each product listed in your store, you will enter the total available quantity that you have to sell. At checkout, if a product has reached its maximum sales, Simple Raise will display a ‘sold out’ message to the shopper and the item will be removed from their shopping cart.

Yes! You can list third-party vendor products, just be sure to include details about delivery and/or pickup instructions in the description so your donors will understand what they need to do to receive their items post-sale.

CutTime connected subscribers will enjoy a seamless connection with Simple Raise. First, they can instantly enroll their students as participants in a fundraiser and launch it from CutTime. Second, they can enable fundraising credits from Simple Raise to be automatically allocated into each student’s account balance for no-frills bookkeeping.

We will collect your financial information to set up payout of your proceeds via ACH or manual check. Typically, your payout is scheduled within five days of the conclusion of your fundraising activity. For product sales via stores, payouts can either be scheduled on a recurring basis for stores with a longer time horizon or one-time if the store is only open for a limited time period.

From our end there are no limitations for how you choose to use your funds. You should always check with your school and district if applicable for their guidelines on spending the raised money. We simply provide a platform to collect & track funds easily.

Yes, you can still use Simple Raise without a CutTime subscription. You will just need to take a few extra steps to import your participants when you initiate your first set of fundraisers and then export your fundraising result data when it's time to manually apply credits to your student program members. If you want to skip all of that tedious copy and paste effort, then definitely consider getting your program on CutTime! You can learn more about how CutTime works and see a demo here.