Indiegogo is intensifying its efforts to become the go-to site for personal and nonprofit crowdfunding campaigns.
On Wednesday, the crowdfunding site introduced Generosity.com, an expanded version of the Indiegogo Life site it created last year for personal fund-raising appeals.
The new platform is designed to be a cheaper alternative to traditional crowdfunding sites, including its parent. Indiegogo levies a 5 percent platform fee on money raised through its site, a 3 percent payment processing charge and 30 cents per donation. Generosity.com, like Indiegogo Life, has no platform fee, but processing charges will be deducted before funds are disbursed.
Slava Rubin, Indiegogo’s co-founder and chief executive, said the main difference between Generosity.com and its predecessor was that all nonprofit campaigns would now be hosted on the site. “They’ll no longer pay any fees, which is a very big change,” he said.
Personal crowdfunding sites are a popular choice for campaigns intended to fund medical costs, memorials, educational projects and other charitably minded giving. The biggest site is GoFundMe, which said in September that it had processed donations totaling $1 billion over the previous 12 months. In the United States, GoFundMe charges fees of 7.9 percent and 30 cents per donation for its platform and payment processing costs. (The site’s international rates vary, and charities pay slightly higher fees.)
Indiegogo declined to break out donation statistics for Indiegogo Life. As a whole, the company said that its campaigns had raised $750 million since the site was founded in 2008. Other crowdfunding sites include YouCaring, GiveForward and Fundly.
Indiegogo’s main site — like Kickstarter, its top rival — facilitates fund-raising for creative and entrepreneurial projects.
The line between those and the kinds of cause-based campaigns that Generosity.com is designed for can sometimes be fuzzy, but Mr. Rubin said he was confident that campaign organizers would choose the right site for their endeavor. Indiegogo has more robust tools for campaign marketing and tracking, while Generosity.com’s interface is stripped-down and simpler, he said.
Indiegogo’s main site will help subsidize the costs of Generosity.com. “We have a tip-jar function,” Mr. Rubin said. “Some people tip, many people don’t, but because of the growth of Indiegogo’s core business, we’re able to offer this.”