Take a second. Think about an emergency where you want a huge amount of money urgently! Although there are multiple options like emergency loans or borrowing money from family and friends. But what if you are unable to repay that money? No matter how much you save for a rainy day, you may need a heavy amount of money either for health causes, education fees, or to fund your startup. You would seek for donation. But from where? You may ask. Fortunately, our 21st century has numerous fundraising platforms to provide monies. And one such platform is Milaap. Here, you will get a thorough explanation of Milaap business model.
What is Milaap?
Milaap is an online crowdfunding platform similar to Ketto. It allows you and organizations to raise funds for emergencies, social causes, and creative projects like startups. Founded by the trio of Mayukh Choudhury, Sourabh Sharma, and Anoj Viswanathan in 2010, Milaap became a kingpin among the fundraising platforms. This Indian-based platform has raised over INR330 crores to support more than one million people across the nation. All thanks to its efficient business model, which led to the huge success of its thirteen-year-old journey.
So, in this article, we will delve into the business model of Milaap that led to its massive success. We will go through the bits of Milaap business model in three parts-
- Working Strategy
- Revenue Sources
- Marketing Strategy
Working Strategy
As you know, Milaap, the crowdfunding platform’s prime objective is to provide financial assistance to people in need through donations. If you need money for medical emergencies, education expenses, or business requirements, you can refer to Milaap. But before that, you need to understand how exactly Milaap works. Will you get all the money you collected from donations or not? Do you need to pay extra fees? Etc. You will get this information below.
Steps
First of all, let’s see what are the steps involved in the working strategy of Milaap.
Step 1: Identifying the needy
This is the first and foremost step that a crowdfunding platform needs to do. Identification of the needy! Milaap works with various NGOs and other field workers to identify individuals or families that need financial assistance. Also, you can create fundraising campaigns for your loved ones irrespective of the bloodline relationships.
Step 2: Verifying the cause
Once you sign up for a fund-raising campaign, you need to register yourself by providing ID proof and authentic documents of the needy like medical reports or finance bills, etc. Thereafter, Milaap will verify the cause to ensure that funds are required for legitimate purposes.
Step 3: Creating a fundraising campaign
After verifying the cause, Milaap will create a campaign page for you that will contain details of the beneficiary, background story, and the number of funds required. It will also contain a payment gateway to facilitate donations smoothly.
Step 4: Promoting the campaign
Milaap extensively uses creative marketing tactics to promote the campaign on various online channels. It quickly reaches out to potential donors through brilliant marketing strategies. We will discuss them in the upcoming sections.
Step 5: Collecting donations
Milaap accepts donations through various payment methods such as credit cards, debit cards, net banking, and mobile wallets. Not only that, but it also accepts donations from all over the world in multiple currencies. You can also pay through PayPal, UPI, Paytm, QR codes, and other online wallets. Milaap will never charge you fees if you are a donor.
Step 6: Monitoring, Reporting and Transferring money to the beneficiary
Lastly, Milaap will transfer all the donations to the beneficiary’s account after the accomplishment of the campaign goal. Meanwhile, it will monitor the progress of the campaign and regularly update the donors about the donations.
Features
Milaap’s working strategy revolves around making crowdfunding accessible, transparent, and impactful while fostering a sense of community among its users. Its remarkable features are-
- Accessibility
This crowdfunding platform is accessible to everyone. Since it is a quite simple and user-friendly platform, you can easily create fundraising campaigns and share them with your social networks. To empower its users, Milaap charges no platform fees for donations.
- Transparency and donor engagement
Crowdfunding platforms need to be transparent and honest to win the trust of the public. With this vision, Milaap ensures transparency in all the transactions so that you or the beneficiary along with the donors can see how the contributions are being used. It provides regular updates about the progress of each fundraising campaign.
- Creating a positive impact
Milaap is keen on creating a positive impact on society. It believes in the power of community which encourages people to come forward and support each other causes. Hence, it created a network of support by partnering with non-profit organizations and social enterprises to achieve fundraising goals.
- Innovations to provide a seamless user experience
In the age of the internet, technology is the key to success. Similar to other tech platforms, Milaap is also aware of this fact, Therefore, it is constantly innovating and improving its platform to provide better and more efficient service to users. It makes crowdfunding more effective. One of the focus areas of technology for fundraising platforms is to offer secure and multiple optioned payment gateways. Also, it expertly tracks donations and manages the campaigns with the help of analysts. They assess the impact of the campaigns and provide detailed feedback to the campaign creators, donors, and beneficiaries.
Revenue Sources (How Does Milaap Make Money?)
Now coming to the next part of the Milaap business model. If no fee is required for listing, then how does Milaap makes money? You may ask. Obviously through its revenue sources! Some of the significant revenue sources of this crowdfunding platform are described below-
1. Platform fees
You need to pay a platform fee of 5% to 8% of the total amount raised if you took premium services of Milaap. However, this fee depends on the type of premium feature you used for the campaign and the amount of money you raised. This fee covers the cost of running the Milaap platform like maintaining the website, app, customer support, and marketing.
2. Payment processing fees
Milaap charges payment processing fees on each transaction. It ranges from 2% to 3.5% based on the number of funds you raised. The cost of card transaction fees is 2.2%. It covers all the costs related to the payment-related expenses and payment gateway charges of Milaap. The payment gateway fees for donations made in Indian Rupees (INR) are-
- UPI apps – 0.75% to 2.45%
- Paytm – 1.92%
- Debit/Credit cards – 2.33%
- Net banking – 2.51%
- Amazon Pay – 2.71%
Payment processing fees for donations made in US Dollars using a card issued in the USA (USD) is 2.9% + 30 cents per donation.
Whereas, for donations made in other foreign currencies or USD using a card issued outside the USA is 3.9% + 30 cents per donation
3. Interest income and Subsidies
It invests the revenue collected through platform fees and payment processing fees in short-term fixed-income securities. It includes government bonds and treasury bills. Thus, it generates interest income which is an important revenue source for Milaap. Also, it receives grants and subsidies from government and non-govt. foundations. All of this support its operations and achieves the fundraising goals.
4. Corporate partnerships
One of the major focus areas of Milaap is CSR i.e., Corporate Social Responsibilities. For this, it partners with multiple corporations and brands that help the fundraising process. These partnerships come with profitable sponsorships and donations. Thereby, it is a prominent revenue source for Milaap.
5. Value-added services fee for campaign creators
In case you are a “campaign creator”, you can get numerous values added or premium services on Milaap. These services include marketing and promotion support, personalized assistance, impact reporting, etc. All these things will help you to achieve the fundraising goals more efficiently. However, you need to pay an additional price for these value-added services. The fee depends on the type of services you opt for. Thus, it is also a significant revenue source for this platform.
Marketing Strategy
Marketing is an essential part of any crowdfunding platform. Likewise, Milaap business model uses well-planned and efficient marketing strategies to build awareness of its platform and to get the eyeballs of the public. Some of its key marketing tactics are-
- Social Media Marketing
Milaap leverages social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to reach potential donors and fundraisers. You must have observed frequent advertisements about fundraising campaigns and the stories of those who urgently need financial assistance on social networking websites. Such stories and fundraising tips are part of the campaign promotions through social media marketing.
- Content Marketing
Content marketing is an efficient way to build credibility and trust with potent users. Therefore, the blogs of Milaap feature numerous informative articles on fundraising tips, success stories, social causes, payment gateway information, etc. This is quite beneficial to educate people about crowdfunding.
- Email Marketing
It is one of the most cost-effective marketing methods, where it sends emails to keep the users informed and updates about new campaigns and currently going fundraisers, Also, it sends personalized emails to maximize the fundraising efforts. Once you subscribe to its website, you will also receive newsletters highlighting the fundraising campaigns.
- Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing helps an organization quickly grab followers. Therefore, Milaap partners with various influencers to promote its campaigns and platforms. The influencers include social activists, non-profit organizations, celebrities, and social media influencers. This amplifies the reach of the campaigns and builds trust with potent donors.
- Referral Marketing
It is the quickest way to pile in the fundraisers and drive user acquisition on the platform. Do you know Milaap incentivizes users like you to refer the platform among family and friends? Once you refer to this platform and help to offer donations, you will get rewards like cashback and vouchers.
Conclusion
You can raise funds on Milaap for various purposes ranging from medical expenses to disaster relief. Milaap makes money through a combination of platform fees, payment processing fees, and optional add-on services, allowing them to sustain its operations while providing a valuable service to its users. Headquartered in Bengaluru (India), Milaap extensively fosters accessible and transparent fundraising campaigns. Also, its marketing strategy is focused on building a strong online presence, creating compelling content, building trust with donors, and offering a seamless user experience. All these elements of the Milaap business model have helped it to become one of the leading crowdfunding platforms in India.
