For most nonprofits, improving digital fundraising can take many forms. Creating an experience that makes it easier for donors to complete a gift could arguably have a greater impact on increased fundraising revenue than focusing on personalized and targeted content.
Making a gift to an organization is an intentional act of philanthropy. I conjecture that donors who choose to give through digital platforms will have limited patience to follow through a relatively cumbersome process when compared to what they experience in online retail.
An organization’s website is the most natural place for a potential donor to visit when they are interested in making a contribution. However, websites serve multiple purposes depending on the mission service of the organization. Information structures are simplest for nonprofits with a singular mission. Impact stories and fundraising can be placed at the center of users’ attention. For other nonprofits with more complex services, such as education institutions and public media, they must represent their product before they fundraise. At universities in particular, websites present content for prospective student recruitment, current student resources, and community storytelling before they display fundraising material. Despite the range of concessions organizations may need to make in web design, there are core principles that can improve the online giving experience for donors.
Every homepage should have a donation button prominently featured. Clicking on this button will take users directly to a transaction form where they can select the fund they want to support and how much they would like to donate. Every click is an additional opportunity for donors to abandon the giving process so when a user clicks through a donate button it is very important that they are able to make a gift then and there.
Order of operations follows in importance. Many organizations still ask for considerable information that is indirectly related to the gift being made, but will be helpful for stewardship later on. This includes the donor’s address, phone number, and even sharing a comment about why they are donating. It is okay to collect this data, but the donor is there to make their gift and what is needed to complete the donation is their name, gift amount, and fund. Placing these items at the top of the order creates a sense of progression; the opposite being a burden of data entry before a gift can be made.
A tool that is helping improve the efficiency of giving online is the adoption of digital wallets. Following the lead of ecommerce, these systems allow donors to contribute by alternative means such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and even crypto currencies rather than with a credit card. When already logged into their alt-payment account, users are able to complete the transaction in as little as one click depending on the device (Warren, 2022). While digital wallets are a great option to provide tech-savvy donors, their use can be limited by an organization’s backend payment processing system or CRM. Others are held back by concerns from their legal departments according to a colleague with whom I spoke on the matter (Participant 3, personal conversation, August, 3, 2022).
Being intentional about understanding the giving experience can be crucial to improve online fundraising. Timing the transaction process or using a website heat mapping tool will give an organization great insight into how donors are moving through the online giving experience, and where others are getting stuck or abandoning the process entirely. Ultimately, taking steps to reduce user drop-off is a reliable approach to increasing dollars and donors raised, all without targeted personalization in the giving experience.
Excerpt taken from my dissertation, Digital Engagement and Data Governance in Nonprofit Advancement: Principles for the Future State. See the other three principles of digital fundraising here.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Warren, C. (2022). Digital Wallet for Fundraising 2.0: Making It Easy to Give and to Subscribe. Education Insights Blog. RNL. https://www.ruffalonl.com/blog/fundraising/digital-wallet-for-fundraising-making-it-easy-to-give-and-to-subscribe/.
