SignUpGenius vs Sowfund: Which Is Right for Christian Fundraising?

SignUpGenius has spent years as the go-to name for volunteer sign-ups, potlucks, and school events. More recently, it's also become a place to raise money, after absorbing Fundly's crowdfunding platform into a product now called SignUpGenius Donations. If you're a Christian missionary trying to decide where to raise support, it's worth understanding what that tool is actually built for, and how it stacks up against a platform like Sowfund that's designed specifically for missionary support-raising.

The short version: these two platforms serve different needs. SignUpGenius Donations is a flexible, general-purpose fundraising tool. Sowfund is purpose-built for ongoing, tax-deductible missionary support. Here's how they compare.

What Is SignUpGenius Donations?

SignUpGenius Donations grew out of Fundly, a crowdfunding platform that closed its own campaigns for good in December 2025 after being folded into the SignUpGenius suite of event and volunteer tools. Today, SignUpGenius Donations lets individuals, schools, sports teams, churches, and nonprofits launch a fundraising page for just about any cause, from medical needs to disaster relief to youth group trips.

It's a genuinely useful tool for what it's designed to do: get a campaign live quickly, with no application process and no vetting required to start collecting donations.

What Is Sowfund?

Sowfund takes a narrower approach on purpose. It's a Christian fundraising platform built specifically for missionaries raising ongoing, long-term support, with every donation made tax-deductible because it's given through Sowfund's own registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. Rather than a campaign with a start and end date, Sowfund gives each approved missionary a permanent, public profile designed to grow with them over years of ministry.

The two platforms aren't really competing for the same job. A fair comparison starts with recognizing that difference.

Comparing the Numbers

(Fees verified as of July 2026.)

SignUpGenius Donations skips a platform fee entirely and instead invites donors to leave an optional tip, a model plenty of crowdfunding sites use. Sowfund's flat 5% fee comes with a lower card-processing rate, and roughly 85% of Sowfund donors opt to cover the fees themselves at checkout, meaning the missionary receives the full gift amount.

Mailed checks are another point of difference. Sowfund accepts physical checks as a donation method and processes them for a flat $3 fee. SignUpGenius Donations doesn't have that same built-in check-processing flow; if a donor mails a check, the organizer has to manually log that gift in the platform themselves to keep their records accurate.

Cost alone doesn't tell the whole story here. What matters more for a missionary comparing the two is which platform is actually designed for the kind of fundraising they're doing.

Where Tax-Deductibility Actually Comes From

This is the piece worth slowing down on. A donation's tax-deductibility comes down to who legally receives it, not which website processes the transaction. Only gifts made to a qualified 501(c)(3) organization are deductible; personal fundraising campaigns, for a medical bill or a family need, generally aren't, no matter the platform.

SignUpGenius Donations supports campaigns from both individuals and verified nonprofits. If a campaign belongs to a verified 501(c)(3), donors can receive a deduction and an automated receipt. If it's an individual missionary without their own separate nonprofit status, that deduction isn't available, because there's no qualifying organization behind the gift.

Sowfund solves this differently: every donation runs through Sowfund's own 501(c)(3), so it's automatically deductible regardless of whether the missionary has their own nonprofit. Donors get an automatic email receipt the moment they give, plus an annual giving statement every January covering the prior year, all without the missionary lifting a finger. That structure also covers missionaries serving outside the US: because Sowfund itself is the US-registered charity, a missionary based abroad can still offer US donors a valid deduction, something a platform without its own umbrella nonprofit generally isn't positioned to do.

Here's the practical takeaway: if you already have your own 501(c)(3), or your sending agency handles the tax side of giving for you, this distinction may not affect you much. But if you don't have your own nonprofit, or you have a small one and would honestly rather be doing ministry than compliance paperwork, this is where Sowfund's design solves a real problem.

Built for a Season vs. Built for the Long Haul

General fundraising platforms, including SignUpGenius Donations, are built around the campaign model: create a page, set a goal, run it for a while, wrap it up. That's a great fit for a defined need. It's a less natural fit for how missionary support actually works, which isn't a single campaign but a relationship with donors that's meant to continue for years.

A few features that reflect that difference:

A lasting profile, not just a campaign page. Every approved Sowfund missionary gets a public profile with their own short link (sow.fund/yourname) that lives independently of any single fundraiser, so a donor can find it again two years from now to increase their gift.

Recurring gifts with no added cost to the donor. Monthly giving is the foundation of sustainable support. Sowfund's donation flow treats one-time and recurring gifts the same way, with no extra fee tacked onto monthly donations.

Room for both a profile and a project. A Sowfund missionary can run a specific fundraiser for a trip or project at the same time as their standing profile, with each page linking to the other, so there's no need to juggle two separate platforms.

A wallet designed for ongoing use. Sowfund's wallet shows every donation with a full fee breakdown and donor notes, and lets missionaries withdraw whenever needed, built for money moving regularly rather than one lump sum at the close of a campaign.

QR codes built in. Every Sowfund profile and fundraiser has a QR code ready to display in person, handy for sharing a support link from the front of a church without reading out a long URL.

Automatic year-end tax statements. Each January, Sowfund sends donors a summary of their giving from the previous year, so missionaries aren't tracking down records or answering January emails asking for a receipt.

Getting Started on Each Platform

Starting a campaign on SignUpGenius Donations is quick and open: no application, no waiting period, and nonprofit-specific features like the verification badge and automated deductible receipts are available once an organization separately proves its 501(c)(3) status.

Sowfund takes an extra step before granting access: missionaries apply, and Sowfund typically responds within 72 hours, followed by identity verification through its payment partner, Stripe. That added step is intentional. Donors committing to monthly gifts for years want to know the person on the other end has actually been reviewed, a kind of trust signal that matters far more for long-term support-raising than it does for a single short-term campaign.

Which Platform Fits Your Fundraising?

If you have your own registered nonprofit, or your sending agency already handles tax-deductible giving for you, SignUpGenius Donations is a strong, low-cost option for a specific project or a one-time need. It's fast to set up, flexible enough for almost any cause, and free to start.

If you're a missionary building ongoing support and you don't have your own 501(c)(3), or you do but would rather spend your time and energy on the mission field than on nonprofit administration, Sowfund was built with exactly that situation in mind. It gives donors an automatic tax deduction, gives missionaries a permanent home for support-raising instead of a campaign with an end date, and takes the nonprofit paperwork off their plate entirely.

Both platforms do their jobs well. The difference is simply which job each one was built to do, and for long-term, tax-deductible missionary support specifically, that's the gap Sowfund was created to fill.