Increase online donations by making it easy for donors to give
Today providing diverse online donation options is essential for the successful nonprofit. Countless merchants are making purchases as simple as a few taps on their mobile phone to order a coffee, groceries and more, which sets expectations on how they make donations as well. Enabling supporters to make convenient, fast, and secure online contributions and removing friction in the donation process is key to make sure donors complete their donations and don't leave the process midway.
How does a nonprofit optimize their online fundraising?
The highest goal of every nonprofit is to focus on making it easy for donors to give. Here are a few ways to do that:
Make mobile giving a priority
Mobile donations are up 208% from five years ago. Mobile devices are becoming the preferred method of giving. The donation process needs to be convenient on mobile. Fundraising pages need to look great on wide range of phone and tablet screen sizes and to connect to various mobile-only payment options like Apple Pay and Venmo.
Provide a contextual giving process
Another way to remove barriers for donors is to provide a donation experience that lets them donate while keeping them in the context of where they were prompted to donate. Meaning, its better to not force them to navigate to another domain, load multiple pages or fill out a lengthy form to send a $20 donation. The process should be a quick and naturally flow from the context the donor is prompted to give.
With a simplified donation process that stays in context, we've seen conversions go up by 166% and a 63% decrease in abandonment in the donation process. This is due to DonorDrive's Express Donate® feature which allows a short pop-up form to appear on the fundraising page letting donors give in a few seconds.
Another example of contextual giving is to allow giving through integrations with popular social channels. Facebook Fundraisers have proven to be a powerful stream of revenue for nonprofits in the last 5 years. The high web traffic, engagement and Facebook's notifications and alerts are very effective at spurring donations. Using an integration that allows fundraisers to receive donations on Facebook and their fundraising pages is a simple way to boost individual fundraiser performance.
Charity streaming is also gaining momentum as an online fundraising channel. Viewers watching a stream on Twitch may hesitate to navigate out of Twitch to make a donation. With DonorDrive, you can create custom Twitch Extensions for your nonprofit's brand. A custom Twitch Extension will enable more donations and reassure your donors that their contributions are being properly directed to you. A DonorDrive Twitch Extension has proven to be the best way to keep donations on Twitch contextual and convenient for donors.
Offer many payment methods
While standard credit card transactions are not going anywhere soon, digital payment methods like PayPal®, Apple Pay™, Amazon Pay™ and Venmo are on the rise. On mobile, each of these create shortcuts for donors to give without manually typing in a credit card number. In the last five years the number of digital donations grew 239% and digital dollars grew by 322%. By offering convenient payment methods on your peer-to-peer fundraising pages, ticket purchasing, and donation campaign, you can capture more donations with a smooth transaction experience. If you don’t offer all these options, you could be turning your donors away.
Use reliable giving methods like eCheck
Giving by eCheck makes recurring giving easy. An ElectronicPayments.org survey shows 55% or respondents had a credit or debit card reissued in the past year because it expired or because there was a security concern. That’s not a problem with Pay by eCheck. This method also raises more. According to NonprofitsSource.com, donors that set up recurring donations give 42% more annually compared to one-time givers. Recurring donations are an easy way to build long-term relationships with your donors and they ensure more predictable revenue for your organization.
Inconvenience is often overlooked as a reason why fundraising dollars are down. Your supporters buy coffee with their phone and now expect that same easy experience to make a donation. By providing a simple giving experience with diverse payment options, nonprofits can expect to see abandonment rates go down and donations go up. DonorDrive's wide breadth of payment method acceptance and innovative ways to engage donors ensures there are no barriers between your mission and your donors.
