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Allyson Kapin 4 min read

Tips to Improve your Donation Forms

With #GivingTuesday behind us, we’ve officially stepped into the end-of-year-giving zone. There’s no turning back. Now it’s time to step up your game so you can raise a lot of money over the next three weeks. 

Nonprofit Tech for Good analyzed nonprofit’s donation pages by making a small donation to 32 nonprofits, and they recorded their experience: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

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We’ve boiled down their results and have paired them with some suggestions for your year-end fundraising campaigns:

  • Make sure people are able to donate. The good news is that there were only 3 nonprofits that they were unable to donate to while attempting their donations (9% of the nonprofits).
  • Ask people to become monthly donors. Asking people to give monthly vs once will always generate more money in the long-term. 84% of the nonprofits included the option to make a monthly gift within their donation form. 4 of the 32 nonprofits included a light box to convert one-time donors into monthly donors.
  • Include honor and tribute options. 19% of the nonprofits included the option to make an honor/tribute gift within their donation form.
  • Short, sweet, and to the point gets the donation quicker. 50% of the nonprofits had a one-page donation form. Your donors don’t want to have to click again, and again, and….again when they’re just trying to support you and contribute some of their hard earned money.
  • Your entire website should be responsive; especially the donation form. While the majority of nonprofits had mobile responsive donation forms, 22% did not. This will inhibit some of your constituents from giving to your nonprofit. This should be a priority fix.
  • Let your donors share your nonprofit with their personal networks. Only 10 of the 32 nonprofits (31%) included a call-to-share the donation on social networks on their “Thank You” landing page and only 2 included it in their “Thank You” email. Zero featured a visually compelling call to follow them on social media on their landing page, and only a few more (7) included a call to follow them on social media in their email.
  • Survey your users and find out what inspires them to give. A miniscule 2 of the 32 nonprofits included a poll on their “Thank You” page asking what inspired the donor to give. See WWF's example below. 

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Your job to test and re-test your donation forms to get the highest conversion rates is never finished.

What have you found to work for your nonprofit to inspire giving?

 

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Allyson Kapin

Allyson has been named one of "Top Tech Titans" by the Washingtonian, one of the Most Influential Women In Tech by Fast Company, and one of the top 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter by Forbes for her leadership role in technology and social media. As Founding Partner of Rad Campaign, she leads the firm's client and online strategic services. For over a decade Allyson has helped non-profit organizations and political campaigns create dynamic and award-winning websites and online marketing and recruitment campaigns. She works side-by-side with her clients to meet their web needs and maximize their online effectiveness to create real world impact.

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