How do you embed your crowdfunding campaign on a website?

What can you embed from a CoFunders campaign?

Four things: a Back this project button, a small badge with the share of the goal raised, a larger card with the amount raised, the goal and the time left, and a live card. The button, the badge and the card are images inside a link to your campaign page. The live card is a small page in a frame, with a plain link under it.

Every link is an ordinary one, and its text names your campaign, so every site that shows it sends readers, and search engines, to your campaign. The live card comes in light or dark. From your public profile, you can also embed your live campaigns together, up to three.

Where can you put a crowdfunding widget?

Anywhere that shows an image with a link. Websites and blogs take the HTML code, and the live card needs a site that accepts a frame. A GitHub README or a Notion page takes the Markdown code. Email newsletters take the PNG card or button, because email apps block frames and many don't show SVG images.

On Linktree or a social network, paste the campaign link: it previews with your cover. In an editor that reads oEmbed, a campaign link pasted on a line by itself may become a card, or stay a link. Building a library or a tool? How to fund an open source project says where else to put your campaign.

How do you embed your campaign on your site?

Open your live campaign in the app, unfold its last section, Embed on your website, and pick a format and where it goes. Copy the code and paste it into your site, README or newsletter. The section appears once the campaign is public.

1. Publish your campaign.
2. Open it in the app and unfold Embed on your website.
3. Pick Button, Badge, Card or Live card, then Website, Email, or README or Notion. Email offers the card and the button.
4. Copy the code and paste it where your readers are.

For the live card, a site that allows scripts can use the optional script form instead: a plain link and one small script, which puts the live card above the link and fits its height. The script's address never changes, and the code carries its integrity hash, so the page loads exactly that file or nothing.

Does the widget show live progress?

The badge, the card and the live card do. The badge shows the share of the goal raised. The card adds the amount raised, the goal and the time left, and the live card adds the backers. Their figures usually update within about ten minutes. Once the goal is met, the card says Funded. The Back this project button shows no figures, and once the campaign stops taking pledges, it says See this project.

A campaign that few people visit can show older figures on a first view, and GitHub and email apps keep their own copy of an image for a while.

Can people back your campaign inside the widget?

No. Nobody signs in or pays inside a widget. Tapping it opens your campaign page on CoFunders, with the Back button in view while the campaign takes pledges, and the pledge happens there, signed by the backer's own wallet. The live card's links open the page in a new tab.

Your pledge sits in an escrow account the program controls, not in a CoFunders account. Under the program's rules, only the creator can claim a campaign's funds once it reaches its goal, and only you can take your pledge back if it misses. The program can still be upgraded, and today one key we hold can upgrade it (see /security).

What does a widget copied from someone else's campaign carry?

Your share link, when three things hold: you're signed in, the creator pays a share reward, and the campaign is taking pledges. Each pledge that link brings in pays you the creator's rate, up to 18.5%, in the same transaction as the pledge. Copied while signed out, it carries a plain link that pays no share reward.

To copy it, open the campaign in the app, open its options and pick Embed on a website.

Signed in, the code you copy from someone else's campaign that pays a share reward, while it takes pledges, carries your share link. Each pledge that link brings in pays you the creator's rate, in the same transaction as the pledge. Copied while signed out, or from a creator's own widget, it pays no share reward. The code adds a line saying you get a share reward. Keep that line: it tells your readers the link pays you.

A reader who creates an account through your link can also count as a friend you invited, and friends you invite pay you 0.75% of every pledge they make. Rates and what they add up to are in how sharing pays and the earnings simulator.

Does the widget use cookies or track your readers?

No widget sets a cookie, stores anything on the reader's device or carries an identifier. Each image and each live card loads from our servers, like any image on the web, and the request sends them the reader's IP address and, by default, the address of the site it's shown on. We use the IP address for hosting and to limit abuse, as our privacy policy describes.

The live card also records the domain name of the site it's shown on, when the browser sends it: never the page, the reader's IP address or their browser details. We keep that name for 180 days and show it only to the campaign's creator, as sites that reported showing their card. Anyone can fake that address, so it's a sample, not a verified list.

The images and the live card run no script. Only the optional script form uses script: one small script on your page puts the card in place, and the card tells it its height.

A widget copied by someone else carries their share link: a pledge made on that visit counts for them, and the campaign page saves the link on the reader's device only if their cookie choices allow it.

If you run the site, your own privacy notice may need to say that these images and frames load from CoFunders' servers. The privacy policy has the rest.

What does the widget show when a campaign isn't public?

A neutral CoFunders version with no campaign details. A draft and a deleted campaign show the same neutral version, so a widget never reveals a campaign that isn't public. When the deadline passes, the card says Ended and the button says See this project. Once the campaign is marked as having missed its goal, every widget switches to the neutral version, which never asks anyone to back that campaign.

A funded campaign keeps its widget: the card says Funded, and the button says See this project.

To get the word out beyond your own site, read how to share your campaign from the free course. Every other question is in the answers.