Fundraising is the process of gathering voluntary contributions of money or other resources, by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies.

Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gather money for non-profit organizations, it is sometimes used to refer to the identification and solicitation of investors or other sources of capital for for-profit enterprises.

Traditionally, fundraising consisted mostly of asking for donations on the street or at people’s doors, and this is experiencing very strong growth in the form of face-to-face fundraising, but new forms of fundraising such as online fundraising have emerged in recent years, though these are often based on older methods such as grassroots fundraising.