Raising as much money as you can through your website is crucial to your digital fundraising success.
To help out we’ve compiled our top tips for raising more through your website – these tips will help increase the number of people giving through your website, as well as the amount they give.
If you’re using a platform like CauseVox, they should be fairly quick and easy to set up so you can start maximizing donations straight away. These tips will also work all year round, so we recommend giving one (or all of them!) a try.
You should try to continually measure and evaluate your donation pages to see what is and isn’t working for you. This will help you make decisions about any changes you would like to implement and to measure whether these changes are effective. For more information, read about the real KPIs you should be tracking on your donation page
1) Donate Button In Your Navigation
One of the first things to do is to ensure that your website has a donate button in your navigation. It should be visible across all pages of your website, it should be large, in a different color and with clear copy such as “Donate Now.”
You can change the link of this button to a current campaign page, or a standard, always-on donation page. This button alone will help people easily access a donation form, no matter where they are on your website.
Convert more donors with your donate button by including all the essentials outlined in this article.
2) Embedded and Optimized Forms
On your campaign or donation pages, you should have a form that the donor can easily use to make a donation – the fewer click-throughs the better!
This form can be embedded on the side, ideally down the side of the page like on CauseVox donation pages.
One way to optimize your donation form is also to have the minimum number of fields possible. Long forms with lots of entry fields can deter people from making a donation – try to stick with just the essential criteria.
For more inspiration on optimized forms and overall donation pages, check out our 5 best non-profit donation pages and the most important features of a high performing donation page.
3) Optimized/Mobile Pay
The number of people choosing to donate through their mobile devices is growing, and so, therefore, your donation pages need to be mobile optimized.
Don’t waste your donor’s time by having a donation form that doesn’t size right on mobile, and makes it difficult (if not impossible for your donor) to complete their donation. You can run your donation page through Google Search Console to test it!
To go a step further, try to set up mobile payments such as Google and Apple pay, to ensure that your donor is able to quickly donate using their preferred payment method.
With mobile payments, the friction of your donor having to take out their credit card and manually type in their credit card information vanishes, and with one-click they can complete their donation.
If your donation form isn’t mobile-optimized, the donor may leave and forget to come back later to donate.
4) Donation Tiers
Donation tiers are a great way to increase your average gift. They also give people an anchor or idea as to what other people are giving, and therefore what they think they should be giving.
People often choose the donation amount in the middle, so make sure it’s around the average gift that you’d like to see. Don’t be afraid to have a stretch target in your tier too – this can help nudge your donor towards giving a higher amount.
With donation tiers, it is also important to have a “choose your own amount” so that your donors still have a choice if they are unable to give at one of the suggested amounts.
5) Recurring Donations
Monthly giving is becoming more popular due to its affordability and ease for donors. On every donation form on your website, you should have an option for donors to choose to give monthly.
You could try defaulting the monthly option on your form, as well as having a “Donate Monthly” button in your navigation.
While the immediate average gift might seem smaller, monthly donors have the greatest long term ROI. They’re the holy grail of fundraising, so anything you can do to nudge people towards regular giving on your website will have fantastic long term results.
6) Compelling Content and Stories
As with all fundraising, it’s really important to have compelling content and stories on your donation pages – remember that giving is an emotional experience, and you want people to feel emotional about your cause.
Videos, personal stories, quotes, and images will all help evoke an emotional response in your donor. Here are some tips for creating compelling content on the donation landing page:
- Spend some time gathering and producing images and/or videos of the beneficiaries who you are helping
- Use pictures of people, looking at the camera
- Use social proof- consider displaying the number of people or amount raised so far for your cause, as more people are likely to trust your organization and join in.
- Demonstrate the need and also demonstrate urgency in your copy – why do they need to give now?
- Use emotive language and copy – remember people respond more to stories and emotion than they do to facts and figures
- Put the donor in the story – use “you” instead of “us.” Explain why you need them? How will they help solve the issue with their donation?
- Don’t overcomplicate the stories – keep it simple
- Don’t forget to ask repeatedly – what do you want the donor to do right now?
7) Asks!
And finally – don’t forget to ask! Have multiple calls to action throughout your donation page, with a button to or link to get people to donate.
Your ask should be framed with what you what the donor to do, and why you need them to do it now.
Raise More With Less Effort On CauseVox
All of these tips can be quickly and easily implemented using CauseVox donation pages. Using a clunk-free and easy-to use technology give your donors an experience they’ll love, while helping you raise more online and convert more donors.
Try CauseVoxfor free today and start raising more through your website.
