When someone gives toward a sponsorship, they are beginning a different kind of donor relationship. Instead of giving to a cause, they commit to one specific child, person or animal, see their face, know their story and give every month, often for years.
That personal connection is why sponsors stay so long: cancelling feels like walking away from someone, not just stopping a payment. If your organization runs a sponsorship program, your sponsors are likely some of the most loyal and valuable supporters you have, which raises stakes for getting the sponsorship experience right.
At the same time, sponsorship has also been complicated to manage, with every beneficiary having an individual record that needs to stay current everywhere sponsors see them. Small details like an incorrect age and unclear impact reporting can slowly erode trust.
That’s why we are proud to announce Sponsorships, the simple, stress-free way to run your sponsorship programs—and it’s available today through the Fundraise Up Gift Cart for every Fundraise Up customer.
Why sponsorship programs need a better home
Sponsorships can be complicated. A single sponsorship has to be tracked across several systems: which beneficiary the donor chose, which designation the money goes to, which recurring plan pays for it, and which record in the CRM ties it all together. Beneficiary IDs get typed in by hand or matched in spreadsheets. When a card fails, a sponsor cancels or a beneficiary leaves the program, someone has to update every system and hope nothing slips.
On top of that, your finance team has to reconcile sponsorship revenue separately from everything else, and there’s an additional risk that a sponsor who also contributes to your year-end appeal can show up as two different people.
Some organizations have looked for a simple solution to manage this complexity, but they couldn’t find one so they built it themselves: one campaign per beneficiary, a retail store or custom site that wasn’t really made for a smooth giving experience, or a separate sponsorship tool with its own donor records.
Each of those can work…but only up to a point. Every change is a manual edit, nothing stops a sponsored beneficiary from being featured again, and the sponsorship data often lives apart from the rest of your fundraising.
When we built Gift Cart, fundraising teams we spoke with described building custom workarounds that did the job for a while but often broke or needed constant updating.
Sponsorships brings everything back together onto the same platform as the rest of your fundraising, with the same checkout, the same donor records, and the same reporting.
Manage beneficiaries in bulk, not one at a time
A sponsorship catalog can hold hundreds of beneficiaries, and editing them one record at a time doesn’t scale. With Sponsorships, you can add hundreds of beneficiaries or correct a single detail with one CSV upload in the Fundraise Up dashboard, with up to 5,000 rows per upload. And row-level error reporting means one bad row doesn’t stop the rest.
Records update by your own beneficiary code, so the identifiers you already use in your spreadsheet or CRM stay intact. The spreadsheet you already keep becomes the file you upload, not the file you copy from. Photos, stories, and details change in one place and appear everywhere sponsors see them.
A catalog built for connection, not just browsing
Sponsorship works because a sponsor supports one beneficiary by name. Each beneficiary card carries a name, photo, story, and up to eight media items, so that connection forms before checkout rather than after. Every detail is optional, so you choose what supporters see.
Filters generate automatically from the details you set, with no separate setup. Supporters reach the beneficiary they’ll commit to instead of scrolling through the whole catalog. They can add one sponsorship or several to the cart, alongside other gifts, and complete everything with a single payment.
A catalog that stays current on its own
Set a date of birth once and age updates on the birthday, everywhere it appears. The catalog stays accurate without anyone needing to remember to manually edit profiles through the year.
Sponsorships is launching with one-to-one sponsorship, which means that each profile has one recurring sponsor at a time. Once a profile is sponsored, it’s hidden from the catalog, and it returns if the sponsorship ends. If your program lets several sponsors support the same person, talk to our team about how we can help Sponsorship fit your needs.
Child and adult sponsorship for faith-based and humanitarian organizations
If you run child or adult sponsorship, you add the people your programs serve with a name, photo, story, date of birth, gender, and country. Sponsors are able to filter by details like age and country to find the person they’ll commit to.
Each child’s age updates on their birthday, so no profile goes stale. Children who already have a sponsor come off the list automatically, so no one commits to a child who’s already matched. And a sponsor can choose a child and add a relief kit in the same visit, then pay once.
Human sponsorship is a fit for:
- Faith-based organizations running child or orphan sponsorship
- Humanitarian and relief organizations running sponsorship programs alongside relief kits and program gifts
Animal sponsorship for shelters, sanctuaries, rescues, and wildlife organizations
Animals arrive, get adopted, and move between locations, so an animal sponsorship catalog changes constantly. With Sponsorships, you add the animals in your care with a name, photo, story, and details like species, shelter, and city. Sponsors filter by species or location to find the animal they want to support.
Add new arrivals or update your whole catalog in one upload, with no per-animal setup. When an animal moves to a different shelter, update the file and upload it again. Once an animal has a recurring sponsor, they’re hidden from the catalog. If the sponsorship ends, they return.
Your sponsor-an-animal program runs on the same Checkout and recurring billing as the rest of your fundraising, with no separate store to maintain.
No need to stand up a second system
Sponsorships runs on the Checkout you already use. Recurring billing, receipts, and the Donor Portal work the same way they do for every other gift, and sponsors see their sponsorships in the Donor Portal separately from their other recurring gifts.
Beneficiary details carry into donations, recurring records, and exports, so the data reaches your CRM and finance system without anyone stitching it together. Sponsorships also uses the Gift Cart tools you already know:
- Badges, short labels that highlight beneficiaries, and categories to organize them
- The media library, where you keep the photos for your catalog
- Split designations, so one gift can fund more than one program and land where your finance team expects it
What to do next
Running a sponsorship program somewhere else today, whether on separate campaigns, a store like Shopify or a third-party sponsorship tool? Moving it to Fundraise Up takes a few steps, and our team will help you bring your existing sponsors along.
1. Create your catalog in one upload. Here’s how.
In your Fundraise Up Dashboard, create a new Gift Catalog or open an existing one, then choose Bulk Upload.
Download the CSV template and fill in one row per beneficiary with everything you have: name, story, photos and videos, details, amount and designation.
Upload the file. Every beneficiary becomes a sponsorship gift automatically.
The details you fill in become filters for supporters, so the more complete your file, the easier it is for sponsors to find someone to support.
2. Put your catalog on your website
Choose where your sponsorship catalog should live on your site and add it as an embedded element. All the customization you already use stays available: button colors, shapes and the rest of your branding, so the catalog matches your site and brand guidelines.
3. Bring your current sponsors with you
If you already have active sponsorships on another platform, contact us. Our team will build an individual migration plan around how your program works today, and move your existing sponsorship subscriptions to Fundraise Up. Each sponsor stays connected to the same beneficiary and keeps giving without interruption or having to sign up again.
