Case Study: GoFundMe achieves higher donor discovery and fundraising conversions with Algolia

GoFundMe Reinvests in Search to Help Donors Find the Causes They Believe in

GoFundMe, the Redwood City–based leader in online fundraising whose community has raised billions since 2010, needed to make it easier for donors to find the right campaigns while reducing manual search configuration, avoiding platform downtime, and running analytics to drive clicks and conversions. Search reliability and discoverability were particularly important because donors often only remember a single detail—name, location, or cause—when trying to locate a fundraiser.

By moving to Algolia’s SaaS search (InstantSearch, Query Suggestions and built‑in A/B testing) and leveraging client libraries plus hands‑on Solutions Architect support, GoFundMe quickly implemented new discovery pages and a featured carousel with minimal maintenance overhead. The change delivered measurable gains—about a 1% incremental click‑through from explicit searches and a 15% increase in engagement—while improving conversion for top fundraisers, simplifying operations and onboarding, and adding cloud‑based resilience.

GoFundMe

Mark Peter

Software Engineering Manager