by Abby Jarvis
We’ve all read the reports: online giving has surged in popularity in the past decade, and it’s getting more popular every year. Millions of donors now give with just a few clicks instead of mailing in checks or giving their information over the phone (although some donors still prefer those methods!).
Because so many donors now want to give on the internet, nonprofits are having to step up their strategies for asking for support online.
We’ve collected eight of the best strategies and tips for asking for donations online. We’ll cover the following points:
Make Your “Donate Now” Button Prominent
Optimize Everything for Mobile Devices
Spruce Up Your Donation Page
Start Sending Better Emails
Offer Other Ways to Give
Use Social Media to Promote Your Donation Form
Use a Multichannel Approach
And for more info, check out Qgiv’s Ultimate Guide to Asking for Donations.
Let’s get started!
1. Make Your “Donate Now” Button Prominent
If you want to start getting more online donations, you need to make it easy for people to give to you.
Don’t hide your “Donate Now” button on your website!
Instead, make sure that it is prominent on all pages of your website.
This means you should:
Place your “Donate Now” button above the fold of your website (“above the fold” means that the button is visible at the top of the page regardless of a user’s scrolling).
Make the button a contrasting (but complementary) color, which will make it more visible.
Prominently highlight your donation page on your “Ways to Give” page (alongside other, more traditional giving methods).
Include compelling calls-to-action that lead to your donation form on all pages (including blog posts and organizational updates).
When you prominently feature your “Donate Now” button across your website and use other pages to direct users to your donation page, you increase the chances that users will click on it and end up on your donation page.
Of course, your website shouldn’t just be about fundraising. Make sure that the rest of your site gives donors a reason to give.
Include images and videos of the people, communities, or animals you help.
Tell success stories of how donations have helped the groups you serve.
Give tangible examples (i.e., “A single donation of $50 will accomplish…”).
Once users feel compelled to give to your organization, they should be able to easily find your “Donate Now” button regardless of what page of your website they’re visiting.
Bonus: Check out these free and simple tools for making great calls-to-action.
2. Optimize Everything For Mobile Devices
Your donors aren’t just accessing your donation page on their desktops and laptops. In fact, according to a recent study by Mashable:
About 13% of the $481 million in online donations raised by leading organizations in 2015 came from mobile.
Most people think of text-to-give donations when “mobile giving” is mentioned, but it’s so much more than that!
Mobile giving also includes:
Mobile-responsive donation pages
Email donation appeals
Mobile-responsive peer-to-peer fundraising pages
And more!
Since so many of your donors will use their smartphones and tablets to learn more about your organization, your nonprofit’s website and donation page should be optimized for their mobile devices!
What does this mean, though?
Well, optimizing your website for mobile devices could include:
Making buttons and links bigger and easier to click on.
Keeping the format of your page vertical instead of horizontal.
Reducing the amount of text (especially long paragraphs!).
Incorporating more high-quality images.
Using a hosting site that will automatically resize your page for mobile viewers.
After making these adjustments, your donors’ experiences on your website will be greatly improved if they’re using mobile devices, and they’ll be far more likely to donate.
If you need proof of the importance of optimizing your website for mobile devices, look no further than this case study about the No Kid Hungry Campaign launched by Share Our Strength.
After designing an online donation form that would look great on laptops and mobile devices, Share Our Strength saw an increased donation rate for visitors from 17% to 25%.
It’s crucial to create a donation form that works well on all types of devices.
3. Spruce Up Your Donation Page
Since we’re talking about making important updates to your website and donation page, we should probably cover some of the best practices for designing a donation page.
I’m only going to cover a few here, but if you wantmore tips, check out this link (https://www.qgiv.com/blog/donation-pages/).
Keep copy to a minimum
People arrive on your donation page because they want to give, not because they want a complete history of your organization.
You can include a few sentences — perhaps accompanied by an image — at the top of the form, but any more than that will decrease your donation page conversion rate (the number of people who arrive on your donation page and actually make a contribution).
Reduce required information
Speaking of donation page conversion rate: if you require too much information on your donation page, people will probably not finish filling out the form.
Making donors go through a long, complicated donation process only hurts you in the long run.
If you need to collect other kinds of information, send out an emailed survey or collect that information another way. Adding extra fields to your form, even if they’re not required fields, will have a negative effect on your donor conversion.
Don’t make donors fill out a ton of info just to donate. Make it easy!
Offer recurring giving options
Need to increase your donor retention rates? Want to make giving on a regular basis easier for your donors?
Offer recurring giving options on your donation page!
Give donors the opportunity to make their contribution automatically at regular intervals. The most popular intervals donors use include:
Once
Weekly
Monthly
Quarterly
Yearly
It’s an easy addition to make to your donation page that will boost your donor retention rates and make recurring donations easy for your donors.
Use different pages for different campaigns
Your nonprofit likely has distinct fundraising campaigns that you push during specific times of the year. Maybe you just launched a capital campaign. Maybe you’re about to start fundraising for your annual gala. Maybe you have a specific project that needs funding.
Whatever the case is, it might be worthwhile to create a separate donation form for these particular campaigns.
This way, donors can give to your annual fund (if they feel so inclined), but they can also contribute to specific efforts just as easily.
Sprucing up your donation page doesn’t necessarily mean conducting a complete overhaul. Make small changes to create a better user experience for your donors.
4. Start Sending Better Emails
Everyone knows that email open and click-through rates aren’t doing so well these days.
Part of this decline is due to a shift toward text messaging as the preferred communication method for younger and middle-aged donors, but there are other reasons why nobody is reading your emails.
Your emails aren’t aesthetically appealing. Crafting beautiful, functional emails will help increase your click-through rate. Find a way to make your nonprofit stand out in your communications.
Your emails are too self-centered. Donors want to know how they can help your organization. They want to know how they can help and what they have accomplished in the past. Don’t waste space in your email talking about how great you are; inspire your donors and show them how they can help your cause.
Your subject lines are boring. The subject line is the first thing that email recipients see. It should make donors want to open your email!
You aren’t segmenting. Different donors deserve different communications. Your first-time donors shouldn’t get the same email that your loyal volunteers are receiving. A major gifts donor shouldn’t get the same letter you send to a $200 donor. Make sure that you segment out your email list so that donors are getting the right messages.
You’re always asking for money. I know we’re talking about asking for donations, but you shouldn’t just be sending out donation appeals in your emails. Donors do not want to feel like ATMs. Instead, mix it up by including organizational news, invitations to events, and updates on projects.
Email is one of the most cost-effective ways to get in touch with donors, but it doesn’t matter how much money you’re saving if you can’t encourage donors to give within your emails.
Start sending out better emails for higher open and click-through rates!
5. Offer Other Ways to Give
Online appeals (or any appeal, really) won’t always result in a contribution being made. Many potential donors who may want to help you might be unable to support you financially but don’t know how else they can help.
Let them know that they can help in other ways! Start offering your donors other ways to get involved with your organization.
Some people will want to interact with your organization in a more direct way before they make an online donation. In this case, you can offer volunteering opportunities as a way to become involved.
Some donors will prefer to give via a mailed check before they choose to give online. In this instance, you should list your nonprofit’s mailing address on your “Ways to Give” page, along with the link to your online donation page.
Some donors will want to attend an event or a fundraiser before they use your online donation form. You should prominently advertise and promote your upcoming events so that these donors are aware of them.
Not everyone will want to immediately give online, and that’s ok! Just make sure you have viable alternatives that still allow people to get involved with your organization.
6. Use Social Media to Promote Your Donation Form
The donors that are using your online donation form likely have at least one social media profile.
While it’s probably a Facebook account (there are over a billion Facebook users across the globe), there are many other social media sites that your nonprofit can use to promote your online donation page.
Let’s look at some of the most popular ways to use social media to drive traffic to your donation form.
Facebook
When promoting your online donation page on Facebook, you’ll want to:
Include the link to your form.
Incorporate images and videos when appropriate.
Tell a great story that inspires people to give.
Highlight donors who follow you who have contributed online.
The key to using Facebook to ask for donations is to vary your message. If donors only ever see donation appeals in their newsfeeds, they’re probably going to unfollow you.
Instead, sprinkle donation appeals throughout your other posts and uploads, creating a more diverse social media presence.
Additionally, you can include the link to your donation page in the “About” section of your Facebook profile.
Twitter
The advice for promoting your donation page on Twitter is roughly the same as the advice for Facebook.
The only difference is that you have significantly less room to work with on Twitter–only 140 characters!
Your message must be short and to the point; there’s no room for fluff on Twitter.
Tell donors exactly what they should do if they want to contribute online and then give them the link to your donation page.
You can also include the link to your form in your Twitter bio so that donors can easily access it any time they want.
Instagram
You won’t be able to post the link to your donation page in the descriptions of the individual images you upload to Instagram, but you can include it in your bio.
Additionally, the images you upload to Instagram should make donors want to give to your cause. Choose pictures that show the work that you’re accomplishing and use the description to tell donors that they can help by donating online (and tell them that the link is in your bio!).
Social media can be a powerful tool for promoting your donation page and asking for contributions. Make sure that you’re using it to its full potential!
7. Use a Multichannel Approach
My last point is more of a wrap-up than anything. If you want to start raising more money in general and from your online donation page specifically, you need to take a multichannel approach.
Multichannel fundraising meets donors where they are and gives them the right messages according to their preferred communication channels.
One donor might prefer text messages while another prefers tangible direct mail letters. One donor might prefer to get their appeals in a structured email campaign, but another might prefer to see your activity on social media, instead.
Either way, it’s your nonprofit’s job to determine which channels to use for different segments of donors.
You can use various pieces of software to help you segment your supporters into the right communication groups.
It’s also useful to look at past giving history to help inform your decisions. If a donor always gives online, then you should probably try email or text messages as a way to get in touch. If a donor usually mails in their donations, it might be beneficial to use direct mail to ask for donations.
Once you know which communication channels should be used for each segment of donors, you can craft the right messages and more effectively ask for donations.
So there you have it: the seven proven strategies for asking for donations online.
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Abby Jarvis is a blogger, marketer, and communications coordinator for Qgiv, an online fundraising service provider. Qgiv offers industry-leading online giving and peer to peer fundraising tools for nonprofit, faith-based, and political organizations of all sizes. When she’s not working at Qgiv, Abby can usually be found writing for local magazines, catching up on her favorite blogs, or binge-watching sci-fi shows on Netflix.
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