Crowdfunding raised more than five billion dollars worldwide in 2013, and peer-to-peer nonprofit fundraising is seeing explosive growth.  Those are only two of the findings included in a new infographic published by craigslist founder Craig Newmark on his craigconnects.org website.

Other information details various crowdfunding results such as the average online donation to campaigns, the success of the crowdfunding initiative #GivingTuesday, and the best practices of nonprofits that have raised a significant amount of money with this newer fundraising tool.

“I’ve worked on four crowdfunding campaigns myself in the past three years, and I’m pretty pleased with the results,” said Newmark. The campaigns included two to raise funds for veterans and military family organizations, another for Hurricane Sandy relief, and one in late 2013 called the Holiday Challenge for any charity that wished to participate.  Newmark worked with prominent crowdfunding platforms to promote the campaign and has donated prize money for the organizations that raise the most in order to stimulate competition and success.  All told the campaigns raised an estimated $2.6 million for hundreds of charities.

Newmark started his craigconnects initiative in March 2011 to organize his efforts to help support nonprofits working in his areas of focus. He said crowdfunding is a natural fit for his efforts to promote the use of technology for the public good because it involves grassroots efforts and involvement. “I’m not much for top-down stuff. I only understand bottom-up stuff,” he said.