From Platform Fees to Planting Seeds: Berry Good Food’s Zero-Fee Fundraising Story

Berry Good Food empowers communities in San Diego to make healthier food choices by reconnecting them with where their food comes from. They do this through education, hands-on learning, and shared meals that bring people together.

Background

In Oceanside’s Tri-City neighborhood, Berry Good Food runs a free community garden and kitchen program. Twice a month, residents harvest produce from six garden beds and prepare healthy meals together. These aren’t just cooking classes. They’re community dinners that build resilience, spark connection, and teach lifelong skills.

Like many small nonprofits, Berry Good Food was stretched thin.

They were using Eventbrite for ticketing their biggest annual fundraiser, but the fees cut directly into the funds they worked so hard to raise. Donor management lived in spreadsheets. Other tools were either too expensive or too complicated to use.

Before switching to Zeffy, they faced three major hurdles:

• High platform fees: Their largest fundraiser — Seeds for the Future — lost revenue to ticketing fees, reducing funds available for school garden grants.

• Fragmented tools: Without a unified system, the team juggled Excel sheets, expensive CRMs, and manual processes.
  

• Mission loss through fees: Every dollar lost to fees meant fewer resources for the community.

“I wanted a unified system. But everything was either way too expensive or just didn’t fit. I stuck with Excel for years because there wasn’t a better option.” — Jessica Waite, Board Chair

Fees weren’t just a nuisance. They represented real, tangible loss.

"It was not a great feeling to throw this big event and then see the final number drop after fees. That’s money that could have funded an entire school garden."

When Berry Good Food discovered Zeffy, everything changed.

They finally had an all-in-one platform that handled ticketing, donations, and donor communication, without taking a cut. The interface was clean. The experience was intuitive. And for a grassroots team with no room for error, it just worked.

• Zero-fee fundraising meant more direct impact

• Donor management and event ticketing lived in one place

• The interface was intuitive and clean, even for a small team with limited time

“We’re completely grassroots. Every penny we raise needs to go toward the mission. Zeffy lets us do that.”— Christina Ng, Programs & Development Manager

What They Use

Berry Good Food now relies on Zeffy for:

• Donation forms embedded on their website

• Event ticketing for their annual Seeds for the Future school garden grant fundraiser

• Auction ticketing for their upcoming 2025 charity auction

• CRM tools to track donor relationships and campaigns

• Automated receipts and donor communications

Since switching to Zeffy, Berry Good Food has raised $89,123 and saved $4,457 in platform fees, enough to fund an entirely new school garden.

That garden?

• Could impact up to 2,000 students, depending on the school

• Will serve as a living classroom for garden-to-table  educational programming

• Wouldn’t exist without the fees they saved by switching to Zeffy

“Before Zeffy, we were fundraising to survive. Now we’re fundraising to grow.” — Christina Ng

Zeffy isn’t just a tool for Berry Good Food. It’s a way to put more seeds in the ground, more meals on the table, and more food knowledge into the hands of their community.

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Tired of Losing Money to Fees?

Berry Good Food used to run their events on Eventbrite — until they realized how much it was costing them. Now they use Zeffy for everything, and they keep every dollar they raise.

See how Zeffy compares to Eventbrite →