When your school’s fundraising coordinator asked me to help research online platforms for this year’s walk-a-thon, I spent weeks testing different services. 99Pledges kept coming up in PTA forums and school administrator groups, so I created a test campaign to see what all the talk was about.
99Pledges is a specialized online fundraising platform built exclusively for schools, PTAs, sports teams, and youth organizations running pledge-based events. The platform handles walk-a-thons, read-a-thons, dance-a-thons, and similar campaigns where participants collect pledges from supporters.
After working through the setup process and watching how the system handles donations, tracking, and reporting, I can tell you exactly what works, what doesn’t, and whether it makes sense for your organization.
What Makes This Platform Different
Most fundraising platforms charge you to start. They take platform fees, subscription costs, and processing fees.
You’re paying many times before you see a dollar.
99Pledges takes a different approach. The platform charges zero startup fees and zero monthly subscription costs.
You pay nothing to create an account and launch your first fundraiser.
The only costs you’ll see are standard credit card processing fees: 3.49% plus $0.49 per transaction. This fee goes directly to Visa, Mastercard, or PayPal, not to the platform itself.
Your organization keeps 96-98% of every online donation.
When supporters donate with cash or checks, you keep 100% of those funds. The platform still tracks them for free in your dashboard.
Try 99Pledges Free, No Setup Fees or Contracts
How the System Actually Works
The platform creates person donation pages for each participant in your fundraiser. Your student, athlete, or volunteer gets a unique link they can share through text, email, Facebook, or any other channel.
When someone clicks that link, they see a clean donation page explaining your fundraiser. They can pledge a flat donation or pledge per unit of activity (per mile walked, per book read, per lap completed).
They enter their payment information, and the system processes it immediately.
Your participant sees the donation appear on their personal progress tracker in real time. Your organization sees it added to the campaign total.
Supporters receive an automated thank-you email with their receipt.
The entire process happens without any manual data entry from your volunteers. No spreadsheets.
No reconciling paper forms.
No phone calls to collect pledges after the event.
Here’s what happens on your end:
You set up the campaign with your fundraiser name, goal amount, end date, and basic information. The system generates participant pages automatically.
You share login credentials or links with your participants.
They share their pages with friends and family. Donations come in. The platform tracks everything.
Your campaign ends.
Funds transfer to your bank account within 1-4 business days.
The Real Problems This Solves
Geography No Longer Limits Your Donors
Traditional pledge sheets only work with people you can physically hand them to. Your kids’ grandparents in another state can’t help.
College friends who moved away can’t contribute.
Extended family members who would donate never see the opportunity.
Online donation pages remove that barrier completely. Your participant can text their link to relatives across the country.
Post it to social media for their entire network to see.
Email it to former neighbors who moved away.
I watched one campaign where a student’s grandmother shared the link in her retirement community Facebook group. People who had never met the student donated because they connected with the cause.
That doesn’t happen with paper forms.
Volunteer Time Drops Dramatically
The traditional model needs volunteers to collect pledge forms, manually enter data into spreadsheets, make follow-up calls to collect money, reconcile cash and checks, and create reports for the board.
One person can manage a 99Pledges campaign that would normally take five volunteers. The automation handles data entry, thank-you emails, progress tracking, and financial reporting.
Your volunteer coordinator focuses on promotion and engagement instead of administrative tasks.
Professional Presentation Increases Trust
When supporters see a polished donation page with clear information, secure payment processing, and automatic receipts, they trust it. They’re comfortable entering credit card information.
They give larger amounts than they would hand over in cash to a teenager at their door.
The platform accepts credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Supporters choose whatever payment method they prefer.
The friction between wanting to donate and actually donating disappears.
Start Your Free Campaign with 99Pledges
Setting Up Your First Campaign
The setup process took me about 45 minutes from creating an account to having a fully functional campaign ready to share. Most of that time was writing the campaign description and uploading a photo.
The platform walks you through each step:
Account Creation: You enter your organization’s name, contact information, and bank account details for receiving funds. The verification process is quick.
Campaign Details: You choose your fundraiser type (walk-a-thon, read-a-thon, etc.), set your goal amount, and pick start and end dates. You write a description explaining what the funds will support.
Participant Setup: You can manually add participants or let them register themselves. Each person automatically gets their own donation page with a unique link.
Customization: You add your school or organization’s logo, choose colors, and set up any reward levels or incentives for top fundraisers.
Once you launch the campaign, participants receive emails with their personal links and simple instructions for sharing. The system handles everything else automatically.
The mobile interface works smoothly on phones and tablets. Your participants don’t need any technical knowledge.
They click their link, see their page, and share it.
Where This Platform Excels
| Feature | How It Helps |
|---|---|
| Zero Platform Fees | Your organization keeps 96-98% of funds raised instead of losing 15-20% to platform costs |
| Individual Participant Pages | Each person has their own shareable link, expanding reach beyond local supporters |
| Real-Time Tracking | Participants see donations appear immediately, creating momentum and friendly competition |
| Multiple Payment Methods | Supporters choose credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or traditional cash/check |
| Automated Communication | Thank-you emails and receipts send automatically, saving volunteer hours |
| Quick Fund Transfer | Money reaches your bank account within 1-4 business days after campaign ends |
The platform shines when you’re running events with person participants who can tap into their own social networks. Walk-a-thons work beautifully.
Read-a-thons for schools engage students and their extended families.
Sports team fundraisers let athletes reach their personal networks.
The leaderboard feature creates healthy competition. Students check their progress many times a day.
Parents share updates about their child’s ranking.
This engagement drives more sharing and more donations.
What This Platform Doesn’t Do Well
This 99Pledges Fundraising Review needs to be honest about limitations. The platform is specialized. It does pledge-based fundraisers extremely well and struggles with everything else.
If your organization needs to run an auction, you’ll need different software. Complex giving campaigns with many unrelated revenue streams won’t work here.
Recurring monthly donor programs need a different platform.
Peer-to-peer crowdfunding for many simultaneous causes needs broader tools.
99Pledges does one thing: pledge-based campaigns with person participants. That focus is both its strength and its boundary.
The customer support is good but not 24/7. If you’re setting up a campaign late on Sunday night and hit a problem, you’ll wait until business hours for help.
The knowledge base answers most common questions, but sometimes you need a real person.
The reporting is solid for basic fundraising metrics. You can see who donated, how much, which participants performed best, and overall campaign progress.
Advanced analytics and detailed demographic data aren’t available.
Best Practices from Successful Campaigns
After reviewing dozens of campaigns and talking to coordinators, several patterns emerged from the successful ones:
Launch with momentum. Don’t announce your fundraiser and hope people notice. Plan a kickoff event or announcement that gets participants excited. Have them share their pages the same day.
Early donations create social proof that drives more giving.
Set tiered rewards. Participants who reach $50, $100, or $250 earn small prizes or recognition. This gives them specific goals to share with potential donors.
Instead of saying “please donate,” they can say “help me reach $100 to earn my reward.”
Share updates throughout the campaign. Post photos from the event, highlight top fundraisers, and show progress toward your goal. Each update reminds people to donate and keeps momentum going.
Make the event itself engaging. The platform amplifies interest, but your actual walk-a-thon or read-a-thon needs to be something participants genuinely enjoy. Music, food, community energy, and a celebratory atmosphere all matter.
Follow up after the campaign. Share final totals, thank donors publicly (with their permission), and show what the funds will accomplish. This builds goodwill for your next fundraiser.
Launch Your Pledge-Based Fundraiser Now
Who Should Use This Platform
You’ll benefit from 99Pledges if you run pledge-based fundraisers at least once per year. PTAs doing annual walk-a-thons.
Schools hosting read-a-thons.
Sports teams running hit-a-thons or play-a-thons. Youth organizations with community fun runs.
The platform makes sense when you have participants who can share donation pages with their own networks. Elementary students will need parent help.
Middle school and high school students can manage their own pages.
Adult participants typically raise the most because they have larger professional and social networks.
Budget-conscious organizations appreciate the transparent pricing. You’re not committing to monthly fees or locked into annual contracts.
Run one campaign and see how it performs.
If it works, use it again. If it doesn’t fit your needs, you haven’t lost anything.
Organizations with limited volunteers find the automation valuable. When three people are trying to coordinate an entire fundraiser while managing their own work and family responsibilities, automated tracking and payment processing makes the difference between attempting a fundraiser and skipping it because of overwhelm.
Testing Before Full Commitment
Start small. Don’t make 99Pledges your only fundraising method in year one.
Run one campaign alongside or instead of your traditional method.
Track your results carefully.
Document what you raised with your old method last year. Run the same event through 99Pledges this year.
Compare total funds raised, volunteer hours invested, donor reach, and participant satisfaction.
You’ll have real data to make informed decisions instead of guessing whether online fundraising works for your specific community.
Some organizations keep traditional methods for certain events and use 99Pledges for others. The platform doesn’t need exclusivity.
Use it when it makes sense and choose other approaches when they fit better.
The Bottom Line on This 99Pledges Fundraising Review
The platform removes real barriers between your organization and effective fundraising. Paper forms disappear.
Geographic limitations vanish.
Manual data entry ends. Volunteer burden decreases significantly.
The cost structure is fair and transparent. You’re not subsidizing a company’s profit margins.
The fees you pay go directly to payment processors, the same fees you’d pay with any online donation system.
The specialization means this works beautifully for pledge-based campaigns and poorly for everything else. Know what you need before you sign up.
For PTAs, schools, and youth organizations running walk-a-thons, read-a-thons, or similar events, trying this platform costs nothing. Set up a test campaign.
Share it with a small group.
See how the system handles donations and tracking.
Let your actual experience guide your decision as opposed to assumptions about whether your community will embrace online fundraising.
The shift from paper-based systems to digital platforms feels overwhelming until you actually do it. Then you wonder why you waited so long.
The administrative relief alone justifies the small transaction fees.
Get Started with 99Pledges Free, No Setup Costs
Making the Decision for Your Organization
Before committing to any fundraising platform, ask yourself these specific questions:
Do you run at least one pledge-based event annually where this would fit? Can your participants access and share links online?
Will your supporters feel comfortable donating through a website?
Do you have volunteers willing to promote the campaign actively?
If you answered yes to all four questions, testing 99Pledges makes practical sense. If any answer is no, address those barriers first or consider whether a different fundraising approach fits better.
Your community’s comfort with technology matters. Some communities embrace online systems immediately.
Others need more time and education.
Start with your most tech-comfortable group as a pilot before expanding.
The platform provides support during your first campaign. Use it.
Ask questions.
Get help with promotion strategies. Learn from their experience with thousands of other campaigns.
Start Your Free Campaign Today
This 99Pledges Fundraising Review shows a specialized tool that does one job extremely well. It removes administrative burden from volunteer coordinators.
It expands your donor reach beyond geography.
It processes payments securely and efficiently. It costs nothing to try.
Run one campaign and let the results speak for themselves.