Community Music School of Santa Cruz (CMS of Santa Cruz) has been providing music experiences to people of all ages in for over 30 years. With an annual budget of around $60,000 that supports youth music programs and scholarships to music camps and workshops—they needed a fundraising platform that let them keep every penny they raised.
Challenges before switching to Zeffy
Back in 2022 the free donor management system Community Music School of Santa Cruz (CMS of Santa Cruz) had been using since 2018 decided they were no longer going to offer a free version.
The search for a free donor management system begins.
After their last donor management system eliminated their free version, CMS of Santa Cruz was left scrambling to find a replacement that would help them transfer their years of data. As you probably know, there aren’t a ton of online fundraising platforms out there that are actually free. Sure, there are a lot that claim to be free. But the hidden fees can add up fast.
That’s where Zeffy comes in.
The 100% free solution
What started as a donor management tool for CMS of Santa Cruz quickly became a lot more.
"I love the ability to quickly email people who’ve attended any one of our past events—it’s simple and the “from” line in the customer’s email is our name, so there’s no confusion. I also appreciate the ability to embed the donation form or ticketing form into our website—it gives us a professional look. Finally, I couldn’t ask for better customer service. My questions are always responded to promptly, and the team always seems to welcome suggestion for future improvements."
Susan Willats, The Community Music School of Santa Cruz
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
Over $2,000 saved in fees so far.
We’ll just let Susan take this one for us.
"What started as a way for me to track donations soon became a solution for much more: not only could we receive donations without any charges, we could also conduct our camp registration and concert ticket sales, too. Over the past 17 months, we’ve saved over $2000 in fees that we’d normally pay to PayPal or Square. That is a big chunk of money for us!"
Susan Willats, The Community Music School of Santa Cruz
