This article was written by Andrew Berry of Donate.ly
As the final step in the online donation process, it’s extremely important that your organization takes the time to ensure its donation page is up-to-date and functioning well.
This is true for nonprofits of all sizes, but it’s especially important when an organization pays for any kind of external campaign marketing services. Without a strong internal donation page in place, poor user experience can turn visitors away, regardless of how they were initially directed to your donation page.
Or maybe your smaller organization mainly conducts online campaigns that are hosted on platforms with their own donation processing systems, like peer-to-peer fundraising pages. Regardless, any effective online campaign should drive increased traffic to your website to bring more visitors to your donation page.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or making some periodic updates to your donation page, it’s important to follow some best practices:
- Identify exactly what information you need from donors.
- Include some add-on options on your donation page.
- Think about what else your donors might want or need.
- Consider the design elements of your donation page.
- Decide what comes after your donation page.
Follow these core steps for building the perfect donation page! They’ll ensure that your page is effective and a true asset to the positive user experience you’ve worked hard to build across your site as a whole.
1. Identify exactly what information you need from donors
When building or updating a nonprofit donation page, a minimalist approach should be your rule of thumb.
This means requiring your donors to fill in a bare minimum of information fields. By keeping things simple, you speed up the donation process and boost user experience at this crucial last stage of the online donation process.
Remember, your donation page is the very last place where a visitor might change their mind about making a gift. Don’t give them any reason to do so! The most essential fields you should require donors to complete should include:
- Their name
- Their email address
- Some necessary payment confirmation info
- Their desired donation amount
Think very carefully about requiring donors to provide any more information than this on your donation page and form.
Be confident in your donation by choosing a donation platform with full embedding and customization options. Check out Donately’s customizable donation forms for an example of minimalist but fully functional donation tools.
Your donation page and form is naturally where you’d collect additional information about your donors for your databases and marketing strategy. Always wait until after a completed donation to request this information.
A committed donor appreciates and believes in your work, so they almost certainly won’t mind providing more information if you request it later. Plus, even if they choose not to, the fundraising results you can achieve simply by using email addresses in smart ways can be incredible!
2. Include some add-on options on your donation page
Even though keeping required information fields to a minimum should be your top priority when building a donation page, don’t be afraid to provide an add-on option or two (as long as they don’t clutter the page!).
If your organization has an online merchandise store, for example, consider any branded t-shirts you might offer. Why not remind those who’ve already decided to make a donation that they can express their support with a shirt, too?
Think of some ways that you can offer easy ways for new donors to add a t-shirt order to their donation, like:
- Through an attached .pdf order form.
- A link to a separate order page or pop-up.
- Directing them to a t-shirt crowdfunding page.
Check out Bonfire’s free t-shirt order form templates for more ideas on how to offer your merchandise to donors without wasting their time or distracting their attention.
Always feel free to promote your fundraising items or other add-on options on your donation page, but keep positive user experience a top concern.
Online users are bombarded by advertisements daily, but supporters who have already made the decision to donate will be much more easily persuaded to purchase merchandise that expresses their support. Offering add-on merchandise at this stage is also a great way to capture any supporters who change their mind about making a donation at the last minute.
This means you don’t need to aggressively push any donation add-ons. Just simply offer them in unobtrusive ways!
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You should check it out if you want to get more donations and you want to fast-track the entire process.
3. Think about what else your donors might want or need.
In addition to some fundraising add-ons, offer your donors any other tools they might want or need to help them make the most of their donations.
Plenty of fundraising websites that host crowdfunding or peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns offer plenty of such options for donors, so it’s important that you offer similar intuitive options internally, as well.
Put yourself in your donors’ position and think about what kinds of options they might appreciate at this final point in the donation process.
Easily-embedded tools that donors often appreciate include:
- Email newsletter sign-up
- Quick account registration
- Social media sharing buttons
- Matching gift eligibility search tools
Corporate matching gift search tools are a particularly good example of the kinds of unique tools that are easy to include on your donation or ways to give page without distracting from their core purpose of securing donations.
These search tools allow donors to quickly search for their employers’ matching gift programs. Easily embeddable on your pages and emails, search tools let you both boost your donation revenue and let donors feel that their support has made a special impact.
Provide additional tools that don’t push for donation upgrades or distract attention. Rather, use any tools you choose to include on your ways to give or donation page to encourage further engagement.
4. Consider the design elements of your donation page.
You’ve worked hard to design and create strong campaign pages that effectively convert visitors to donors, but have you paid that same level of attention to your donation page itself?
You already know that a minimalist approach is the best investment you can make in user experience for this part of your website, so the more specific design elements of your donation page require some special consideration.
Following a few best practices for effective visual communication will strengthen your donation page overall:
- Remove any unnecessary design flourishes, animations, or distracting elements.
- Use simple fonts that are very easy to read; avoid using unusual colors.
- Limit your use of images. Include only a nice header image, for instance.
- Make smart use of branding. Keep your visual identity clear but unobtrusive.
- Use distinct, easy to recognize buttons for donation completion and options.
Clean, intuitive design that clearly communicates its purpose is the goal with this step. Keeping your donation page looking simple, efficient, and attractive will also go a long way in ensuring that it looks and works great on smaller mobile screens.
More and more web users today interact with digital content almost entirely through mobile devices, so mobile optimization is extremely important for your donation page!
Remember, never risk distracting potential donors at this final step with anything that’s not directly related to making or customizing a donation! Your donation page should look great but also provide straightforward functionality.
5. Decide what comes after your donation page.
The time immediately following a completed online donation can be extremely valuable for your organization! As such, what your new donors see and do after making their gift is a crucial but often underutilized element of the donation process.
Most importantly, new donors should immediately be thanked. Direct your donation page to a thank-you and confirmation message, as well as automate thank-you emails.
Smart nonprofits will take this opportunity to utilize some additional engagement tricks, though! Remember that the moment following a completed donation is the perfect moment to encourage some further engagement. You might:
- Ask donors to share their experience with friends on social media.
- Invite your new donor to an upcoming event.
- Request additional information now (rather than earlier).
- Offer a monthly newsletter signup option.
- Provide an option to register for membership.
- Promote any other special projects or campaigns.
Once a new donor has made a financial commitment to support your work, it’s important that you both genuinely thank them, but just as importantly, begin to build your new relationship with them, too!
Starting relationships with new online donors off on the right foot is the key to strong and reliable donor engagement and stable support for your organization in the future.
I’ve put together a new GUIDE that’s packed with science-backed nonprofit fundraising methods, resources, strategies, and killer marketing methods.
You should check it out if you want to get more donations and you want to fast-track the entire process.
By simply ensuring that your donation page directs donors to an engaging thank-you message and invites them to stay in touch or get more involved, you can make a simple but powerful investment in your organization’s future base of support.
Once online visitors to your organization’s website reach your donation page, they’ve likely already made the decision to donate. That’s why it’s so important to completely optimize this page to boost positive user experience and eliminate any reason for them to change their mind.
Follow these essential steps, adapting them to your organization’s exact needs, to ensure your donation page is as effective as possible!
About Andrew
Andrew is the head of marketing and customer success for Donately. After getting involved with nonprofits at a young age, he discovered a passion for helping the organizations that are making the world a better place.
Knowing how vital online fundraising has become, his goal is to help nonprofits raise more money online each year! In his spare time, you will find him cooking up dinner, playing with his dog or cheering on Boston sports teams.
