Do you know that on-line giving elevated by 9% throughout the nonprofit sector in 2021—and continues to develop for organizations huge and small? On-line giving and engagement have turn out to be a cornerstone of the fundraising world, making it important for nonprofit organizations to supply a seamless on-line giving course of.
So, to assist your workforce enhance the net donor expertise, maximize on-line giving, and higher interact together with your donors, we’ll stroll by way of a number of important steps to good the net donation course of. From data-based fundraising outreach to investing in the best cost instruments, we’ll cowl the next methods:
- Focus in your donation kind’s design.
- Optimize giving for all units.
- Use a safe, accessible cost processor.
- Leverage post-gift outreach.
Able to enhance the way in which you settle for on-line donations and promote a streamlined giving expertise in your donors? Let’s soar in.
Focus in your donation kind’s design.
When donors click on into your on-line donation web page, they need to be greeted with an easy-to-read, simple, and aesthetically-pleasing kind. In any case, in case your donation kind is simply too complicated or poorly designed, it could replicate poorly in your group—or worse—drive donors away and result in kind abandonment.
These donation kind methods will enable you to maintain donors on the web page till they full their items:
- Remove pointless questions and fields. If you happen to embrace too many fields in your donation kind, the method could turn out to be tedious sufficient for some donors to say “I’ll get again to it later” and in the end overlook about their items. As a substitute, stick with the necessities, corresponding to fundamental contact and cost data.
- Use constant branding. Colours, textual content, pictures, and different design and branding components ought to stay constant throughout your whole web site—particularly in your donation web page. This isn’t solely a mark of professionalism, nevertheless it additionally indicators to your donors that they’re in the best place and their data can be protected.
- Embed your kind into your web site. By embedding your donation kind straight into your web site, you may preserve donors from being redirected to a third-party web site to finish their items. This small however vital step could make donors really feel extra comfy, protect the design of your kind, and streamline the donation course of.
As with the remainder of your nonprofit’s web site, the best design and accessibility components can have a big effect on how donors navigate your pages and—most significantly—whether or not or not they determine to stay round and proceed partaking with you.
Optimize giving for all units.
With the rise of smartphones, you may now not count on your entire donors to entry your donation web page on their desktops. Actually, in keeping with 360MatchPro’s fundraising statistics, cellular customers made up roughly 33% of on-line donation transactions final 12 months.
With this in thoughts, you’ll want to arrange for the numerous portion of customers who can be utilizing cellular and handheld units to click on into your platform and try to finish the nonprofit cost course of.
To advertise an inclusive giving expertise for donors on completely different units, you may:
- Use giant buttons and textual content which might be readable throughout units
- Incorporate a sticky navigation menu
- Make the most of a vertical structure
- Put money into donation kind instruments with mobile-friendly templates
To make completely certain that the giving expertise is optimized for a number of units, you may attempt to entry your donation kind utilizing a smartphone and leverage instruments like Google’s mobile-friendliness take a look at.
Use a safe, accessible cost processor.
Your cost processor is the behind-the-scenes software program that ensures donor knowledge and funds are being facilitated safely and conveniently. This makes it a crucial element of the donation course of that must be as safe and dependable as doable.
Specifically, take note of these key options to make sure that you’re utilizing efficient cost processing instruments in your group:
- PCI safety compliance. As mentioned within the iATS Funds information to PCI compliance, PCI compliance is “a guidelines of guidelines and necessities created by the key bank card corporations to make sure that retailers are securely dealing with buyer data.” It’s the closest factor to a golden seal of safety {that a} cost processor can obtain, and it signifies that your cost instruments could be trusted to defend donor knowledge.
- Anti-fraud instruments. As mission-based organizations that depend on folks’s goodwill and belief to boost funds, nonprofits are uniquely weak to the reputational backlash that comes with hacks and fraud scandals. To stop fraud, go for cost and donation instruments which have devoted anti-fraud measures, corresponding to CVV2 verification and encryption.
- A number of cost choices. Some donors choose to present with their bank cards, some go for ACH, and others can be making an attempt to facilitate funds from the opposite facet of the world. To accommodate your entire donors and broaden your giving potential, be certain that your cost processor accepts varied cost strategies, corresponding to credit score, ACH, and worldwide processing.
Poor safety, restricted cost choices, and different hiccups can flip donors away from submitting on-line items. These options will assist uphold donors’ belief in your group and pave the way in which for a snug giving expertise.
Leverage post-gift outreach.
The web donation expertise doesn’t finish when donors have submitted their items. Removed from it—the way in which that your group communicates with donors after the very fact can decide whether or not or not they determine to present once more and keep linked together with your group.
An built-in cost processor is usually a huge assist on this regard, appropriately capable of combine straight together with your CRM and manage cost and speak to data. These particulars ought to then be used to create more practical post-gift outreach by:
- Enhancing future fundraising appeals with donors’ names and giving measurement
- Leveraging donors’ names and giving historical past to personalize thank-you messages and acknowledgments
- Alerting donors to extra giving alternatives, corresponding to selling matching items packages based mostly on donors who used their work emails to submit items
Whereas it’s simple to give attention to donors as they’re within the technique of navigating your web site and donation web page, taking steps to additional steward donors within the aftermath of their items pays again in dividends.
Now that you simply’ve explored key ideas, methods, and instruments to advertise a extra constructive on-line donation expertise, you need to have every thing you’ll want to get began with bettering on-line fundraising in your group. Begin the method by implementing these finest practices and staying knowledgeable about donation and cost software program within the nonprofit area.
Concerning the creator: Peggah Azarvash
Peggah, a gross sales account government at iATS Funds, is a passionate Gross sales Govt with 10 years’ expertise offering cost answer assist and steering to nonprofits.
