The first week of December marks a time when Americans open their wallets and start spending for the holidays.
Consumers transition from Black Friday to Cyber Monday and then GivingTuesday, which was created in 2012 to encourage charitable donations during the season of giving. And like the two mega shopping days that precede it, GivingTuesday expenditures are increasingly happening online. In fact, recent statistics show that about 90 percent of GivingTuesday fundraising happens over the internet, with U.S. donors chipping in more than $1 billion of those online gifts.
If you represent a nonprofit organization promoting a GivingTuesday message, your website plays a critical role in reaching your intended audience and ensuring they receive and act on that message. If your fundraising extends beyond GivingTuesday, how do you leverage your website year-round to ensure you reach your annual giving targets?
In this article, we highlight five (5) key strategies to optimize your nonprofit website for year-round fundraising success:
1. Incorporate the Right Ecommerce or Membership Software into Your Site
2. Share Compelling Stories About Your Mission and Who You Help
3. Use Effective Web Page Design and UX to Convert Visitors to Supporters
4. Construct Clear and Actionable Calls to Action (CTAs)
5. Create Online Opportunities for Donor Engagement and Retention
1. Incorporate the Right Ecommerce or Membership Software into Your Site
Using your website to collect financial contributions requires reliable ecommerce and/or membership management software that can process one-time and recurring donations. You may already have this functionality as part of your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform (e.g., Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, Tessitura, Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, Neon One, Kindful, Bloomerang). If your current CRM or donor database does not have that kind of transactional functionality, here are some other options:
Ecommerce Platforms for Nonprofits:
- Shopify: A widely-used ecommerce platform that offers discounted rates for nonprofits, enabling them to set up online stores for merchandise sales and fundraising.
- PayPal for Nonprofits: Enables nonprofits to add fundraising buttons/calls to action to their websites, while using PayPal to process donations at discounted transaction rates for confirmed 501(c)3 organizations.
- WooCommerce: An open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress, allowing nonprofits to add online store capabilities to their existing websites.
- Donorbox: A donation platform that features tools to accept donations and manage fundraising campaigns.
- Classy: Part of the GoFundMe technology family that helps connect nonprofits to supporters, offering traditional fundraising tools for individual contributions, as well as tools for crowdfunding.
Membership Management Software for Nonprofits:
- Wild Apricot: An all-in-one membership management solution for member databases, event management, and website building that also offers ecommerce tools tailored for nonprofits (online stores and event ticketing).
- MemberPlanet: A suite of tools for membership management, including communication, event planning, and payment processing.
- CiviCRM: An open-source CRM specifically designed for nonprofits, providing modules for contact management, fundraising, event planning, and more.
Once you’ve selected your software, configure it to offer donors options for both one-time and recurring contributions, paving the way for a subscription-style stream of income for your nonprofit. Contributing smaller amounts each month – that still add up to a sizable monetary gift over a year’s time – may be more appealing to donors on tight budgets.
Be sure to prioritize security, so donors feel confident about giving you their contact and debit/credit card information through your website. Use software platforms with SSL encryption and that comply with PCI DSS standards to protect payment data.
2. Share Compelling Stories About Your Mission and Who You Help
While causes can be ambiguous, the individuals they benefit are tangible examples of the good work you do. Keep the focus of your storytelling on the living beings you’re helping. Make sure you are humanizing your mission’s impact, so you can connect deeply with your audience. Share your mission story in a way that elicits emotion and encourages action.
- Focus on Impact: Show real-life results of your work and include testimonials from individuals who have benefited from your fundraising activities.
- Leverage Multimedia Content: Incorporate high-quality videos, compelling imagery, and educational infographics into your web page content to grab your audience’s attention and reinforce the human impact of their donations.
- Be Transparent: Demonstrate how donors’ contributions are invested through regular reports, progress updates, and a “Where Your Money Goes”-style landing page. This builds trust with your donors and incentivizes repeat contributions.
3. Use Effective Web Page Design and UX to Convert Visitors to Supporters
Make it easy for donors to act on the emotions you elicit through your storytelling by creating a seamless user experience (UX) for them – from your homepage to the “Donate Now” button.
- Prioritize Mobile Responsiveness: Many individuals review digital communications, browse websites, and complete transactions on their tablets and smartphones. Make sure your website – and especially its ecommerce portal – is mobile-friendly with responsive page designs and fast page load times.
- Simplify Navigation and Donation Workflows: Create clear pathways for donation workflows and other desired user actions, such as volunteer sign ups and registrations for donor events and educational activities. Make sure the menus supporting the “Donate” section of your website are logically labeled, so donors don’t get lost in your site navigation. Keep donation pages visually appealing but distraction-free.
- Suggestion Donation Amounts: As part of the “checkout” process, use tables or dropdown menus to suggest giving amounts – from modest ($25) to more robust ($1,000+). This guides donors in their decision-making and reaffirms that every contribution counts.
- Streamline Web Forms: Keep the forms you use to collect donor data short and easy to navigate on all device types. Ask only for essential information and engage autofill features when possible to avoid having interested donors back out of forms that feel intrusive or take too long to complete.
4. Construct Clear and Actionable Calls to Action (CTAs)
Effective calls to action (CTA) are important for every commercial website and essential for nonprofit ones. The best CTAs convey purpose and urgency and are “can’t miss” elements of web page design.
- Make CTAs Specific: Phrases like “Donate Now to Feed 100 Families” are clear and more impactful than “Help Us Today,” “Get Involved,” or “Learn More.” Be direct with your language and incentivize immediate action.
- Use Action-Oriented Language in CTAs: How better to prompt action from your donors than through action-oriented language? Craft your CTAs to start with powerful verbs: Join, Give, Donate, Support, Commit, etc. provoke a response from those considering a contribution.
- Place CTAs Strategically: Position CTAs in logical places where the eyes can’t miss them as visitors scan page content. That includes incorporating CTAs into website header art so visitors see them when they open your homepage. Also place CTAs on donation pages, “About” pages, beneficiary profiles, case studies, within blog posts, and in your main navigation, including your site header and footer. Design CTAs to be prominent, using bold, contrasting colors and readable font styles.
- Test and Optimize CTAs: Use A/B testing to determine which of the aforementioned CTA placements leads to the most donations. You can also experiment with different button sizes, colors, and special effects, like animation, to evaluate what style of CTA is most effective.
5. Create Online Opportunities for Donor Engagement and Retention
It’s easier, less time consuming and less costly to keep an existing customer than to secure a new one. Similarly, building long-term relationships with donors makes it easier to go back to those supporters every year with a request to continue their commitment, and hopefully, increase it. As such, make sure your website content and information architecture makes it easy to keep existing donors engaged with your mission and who it helps.
- Plan Seasonal Campaigns: GivingTuesday is a great example of a seasonal fundraising campaign you can use to reapproach existing supporters. You can also leverage major holidays; awareness days/months; program launches; galas, auctions, and special fundraising events; and emergent situations (e.g., severe weather events and business interruptions) as the premise for donor outreach. Before launching a new fundraising program, add campaign-specific content to your site to reflect the message you’re sending to encourage gift-giving, and adhere to the recommendations above about making the donation path pain free for those who respond.
- Keep Communicating: After donors make a contribution, thank them and keep communicating with them. Your website is a strategic vehicle you can use to help donors feel connected to you. This ongoing communication can take the form of donor-focused blogs and articles, community impact stories, updates from the executive director, and calendars with upcoming donor gatherings and special events. Give your donors a reason to return to your website for a sense of belonging and to see the impact of their contributions.
- Host Virtual Events: Webinars, virtual Q&A sessions, and live-streamed fundraisers can serve as perks for existing donors and recruiting opportunities for prospective ones, while also expanding your potential audience beyond the confines of in-person events. It also makes it easier for donors with accessibility and/or mobility issues to participate and stay informed.
Need Help Optimizing Your Nonprofit Website for Year-Round Fundraising Success?
Transforming your website into an effective fundraising tool requires having the right technology, a compelling message delivered in a humanistic way, and an online presence that helps donors understand what’s at stake and what you’re asking of them. From there, they need an easy way to join your cause in a secure way from any web-accessible device. Meeting this criteria means you’ve delivered a digital experience to your donors that inspires action and builds trust.
Take a moment to evaluate your organization’s current website through the filter of the five strategies outlined above. How many are you already using? Which ones would you like to adopt? The success of your mission depends on the action you inspire in others who embrace it. Your website is your ally in expanding your philanthropic outreach, so you can get people to take action.
If you need guidance on how to optimize your website for seasonal and year-round fundraising, complete the form below, so we can connect directly and discuss ways we can help you be successful.