Starting small, but keeping busy.
Bee University NYC (Bee-U) started buzzing around (Sorry… We couldn’t help ourselves.) in 2021. By the end of their first year, they had 3 hives, over 10,000 bees and 50 community members helping out!
In 2022 Bee-U launched their Urban Beekeeping Fellowship. Specifically designed for 16-24 year olds to gain hands-on education from experienced beekeepers, the program ran 14-weeks and participants received small stipends for their participation.
Challenges before switching to Zeffy
Finding a fundraising platform that helped them raise more—not skim a percentage off the top.
Nonprofits will always need all the help they can get (volunteer and financial). But, they are most vulnerable while they’re starting out. Money is almost always tight. It’s hard to find volunteers because of their lack of awareness. And, even though they’re a nonprofit trying to do something good, it’s surprisingly hard to find tools that have been designed for them—especially ones that don’t charge any fees and that can accommodate and help your nonprofit’s growth.
The 100% free solution
A bee-utiful partnership between Bee-U and Zeffy.
No surprise here, but Bee-U’s solution was Zeffy. Why? Well, not only is Zeffy 100% free (and we always will be), but Bee-U loved that, yes we make giving easy with our simple and effective online donation forms, but we also have peer-to-peer forms, donor management solutions, event management and ticketing, eCommerce, memberships, raffles, and our Tap-to-Pay app that allows nonprofits to accept in person payments no credit card fees attached.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/614b8c46183dbb5cb4f4c787/66cde4b0fdda5ea5d4a25125_656f985bb95d981691b9159b_Zeffy%2520-%2520Success%2520stories%2520-%2520Bee-U%2520-%2520Donation%2520form.avif)
Features used
Donations
Offer your website visitors an efficient and intuitive way to give to your cause.
Peer-to-peer campaigns
Make it easy for your community to participate in your fundraising efforts.
Ticketing
Sell more tickets for your next fundraising event with frictionless ticketing forms.
eCommerce
Diversify your fundraising by opening on online store for your nonprofit.
Raffles & Lotteries
Easily launch a raffle with our numbered ticketing options.
Auction
Diversify your fundraising by inviting your donors to bid on items.
Memberships
Make it easy for your supporters to register as a member to your cause.
Donor management
Diversify your fundraising by inviting your donEngage with the right donors at the right time with seamless donor management.ors to bid on items.
Results
Well, we’ll let Tavion Williams from Bee-U do the talking for us:
"Zeffy has been a wonderful platform to work with. It gets the job done and Zeffy doesn't negatively impact our financial situation. The last point was especially important since for the first year of us running programs, we had very limited income."
Tavion WIlliams