A donation page is one of the most important components of your website and can make or break your fundraising. When you’re raising money, getting visitors to your website is only the first step.
Your donation page should ultimately aim to close the loop by converting those individuals into donors. If your page is sloppy, clunky, or confusing, it’s counterproductive to driving more donations.
Elements of a Donation Page
If you’re looking to revamp your current donation page, here’s six elements you shouldn’t overlook:
- Logo/Branding – A branded donation page increases consumer confidence. You want the look and feel – colors, logo, and fonts – consistent across your website and donation page so there’s no question as to where your donors are giving to.
- Donate button – A donate button displayed on your navigation bar and accessible on every page is a must-have. You could have an eye-catching donation page but it’s pointless if no one knows how to get there. Make sure your donate button stands out by using a prominent color or a bold font.
- Recurring donation option. One-time donations are fantastic but giving your donors the chance to opt into donating on a regular, ongoing basis is a no-brainer. It’ll make your life (and theirs) easier in the long-run.
- Donation tiers. Add suggested giving levels and tie each amount back to impact. For instance, $500 can provide school supplies for 10 kids experiencing homelessness for 1 month. When people can conceptualize the impact of their gift with specific outputs, average contributions increase by 12%. Refer to your organization’s gift history to inform your current donation tiers.
- Mobile-optimized. With the majority of nonprofit website traffic coming from users browsing on mobile devices, a mobile-friendly donation page should make giving from any device a seamless and enjoyable experience.
- Keep it simple. Collecting as much information as you can all at once can be overwhelming for your donor and put them off from donating entirely. Instead, we recommend reducing the number of form fields to the essentials – name, email, and payment/billing information – necessary to receive and thank them for their gift. If you’d like additional information, use this as an opportunity to follow up (and get to know your donor)!
Types of Donation Pages
Website Donation Page
The first type of donation page is one where a form (or button) is directly embedded. Rather than being routed to a third-party, your donors can donate right on your website. A custom-branded embedded form generates trust between your organization and prospective donors and can translate to raising 6x more money.
With CauseVox’s integrated donation page, setting up a donation form (or button) on your website has never been easier. In a few simple steps, you can customize your form fields, add your logo, and create a visually-appealing form.
Free-Standing Campaign Donation Page
If you’re running an event- or program-specific campaign (like a peer-to-peer or a crowdfunding campaign), these are likely donation pages that won’t be directly embedded. This means that you’ll be using an online donation platform to run your campaign and a free-standing form (separate from your website) to take donations. CauseVox’s campaign pages are easy to use right out of the box with a base template that can be customized to meet your specific branding needs:
Even though these pages aren’t directly embedded on your website, you can integrate CauseVox into your website via a direct donate link or by customizing your campaign URL to reflect your event.
Recurring and Pledge Donations
A recurring gift is literally the gift that keeps on giving. While we briefly touched on this topic above, recurring gifts can benefit your org in a number of ways:
- It provides a predictable income stream and eliminates some of the guesswork when it comes to budgeting and forecasting.
- It’s convenient and easy for your donors. Once it’s set, you’ll automatically continue to receive that donation on a schedule. There’s no need to process individual payments or hit up one-time donors for another gift.
- It works for donors on a budget. For example, donors may find that giving $10 or $20 each month is more manageable than $100 at once. With payments spread out over time, donors end up contributing 42% more on average annually than they would with a one-time gift.
CauseVox’s recurring gift option lets your donors “set it and forget it” by choosing a dollar amount to be given on a monthly basis.
While recurring donations are a great option, we’ve also developed an additional automated option. With CauseVox’s pledge donation option, we go the extra mile to provide donors even more flexibility and autonomy. The difference between recurring gifts and pledges is that a pledge starts with a bigger amount that is broken down over time and has an end date.
Pledges on CauseVox help automate donations by allowing your donors to pledge an amount today and pay in designated installments. In addition, CauseVox now offers a PayPal integration that can connect to Stripe AND PayPal, all in one donation form.
Tracking What Matters
Once you’ve made sure your donation page has all of the necessary elements, it’s important to measure performance so you know what’s working and what isn’t.
You’re going to want to track key performance indicators (KPIs) that impact your bottom line. These include:
- Number of pageviews
- Average donation amount
- Conversion rate (percentage of visitors who actually made a donation)
- Total revenue earned against campaign goal
- Return on investment (total donations – total spend)
No matter the KPIs you decide to track, data collection is important not only for measuring current progress but to guide future fundraising plans.
Choose Your Platform for Your Donation Page
Having an attractive donation page starts with the right tool. With CauseVox’s smart donation forms, you don’t have to sweat about the backend mechanics. Our platform automatically processes your payments, generates branded receipts, and manages your data so you won’t have to.
To learn more about how CauseVox can help make your donation page irresistible to donors, schedule a free demo.
