Launching a successful fundraising campaign or hosting an online fundraising event that inspires online donations requires more than just passion.
Today's digital world makes developing and promoting online donation pages crucial. Compelling nonprofit storytelling and solid donor relationships provide a foundation for organizations to build a fundraising strategy and collect donations online.
If you're not sure how to get donations, this article offers a comprehensive guide with seven essential steps and tips for accepting donations online and reach your fundraising goals:
One of the first things a new nonprofit needs is a website. While a Facebook page and other social media accounts can help spread awareness of your organization, you must have a website as a central online location for potential donors to visit.
Nonprofits can not only collect donations on their websites but also use them to share their organization's history and program details, volunteer opportunities, fundraising events and campaigns, and more. Use a nonprofit website builder to create your own, encourage online giving, and convert visitors into donors.
Pro Tip: When you formed your nonprofit, you had to fill out your organization's purpose on your state's Articles of Incorporation and when filing as a 501c3 organization with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
This purpose is why you decided to start a nonprofit in the first place. It can also help you develop a compelling mission statement for your organization. Once you have that mission statement, you must state it clearly on your organization's website.
A nonprofit mission statement tells potential donors who you are, what you hope to achieve, and how you plan to do it. This statement can be the primary reason many donors support a nonprofit.
There are a host of online payment processors for nonprofits. As you visit their websites and research each option, there are several features you must be aware of. A few of these features include
Pro Tip: The cost of an online payment processor can vary depending on the services they offer. Zeffy is the only 100% free fundraising platform. Nonprofits can use Zeffy to create online donation pages with a donation form, sell event tickets, raffle tickets, and products, encourage membership, run peer-to-peer campaigns, and collect donor data.
Donation forms and pages are the best way to collect donations online. Fundraising sites allow nonprofits to create separate online donation pages for fundraising campaigns and events. When creating a donation form for your fundraising campaign, add your organization's branding with your logo, colors, font, and content. You must also share compelling stories and images on your online donation page to inspire donations.
Campaigns are successful when they inspire urgency and a sense of community. Your nonprofit organization can do that in several ways.
Nonprofits rely on recurring donations to plan for future events and program updates. Many online fundraising platforms allow donors to give one-time, monthly, and annual recurring donations. Nonprofits can develop memberships or recurring donor benefits that entice more supporters to join and give regularly.
Did your donors know they can double their donations? Many businesses match employee donation amounts as part of their employee benefits. Online platforms like Double
the Donation allow nonprofits to add a link to donation pages that share lists of companies that offer this perk.
A matching gift challenge is an excellent way to create a sense of urgency. Find a major donor or sponsor to give a significant fund if you can collect the same amount as other donor gifts. Promote your campaign online via email, social media, and peer-to-peer campaigns and immediately compel your donors' action.
Pro Tip: To encourage more donations online, you must have a clear call to action. Make sure your donate button is obvious and easy to find. Use bright colors and text that inspire immediate action, like "Donate Now" or "Give Today."
If you hope to achieve fundraising success, create a multi-channel campaign and share your online donation form. Fundraising strategies like social media campaigns, email newsletters, and events are all excellent ways to spread the word about your organization and raise funds.
It's crucial to stay transparent about how you use donations. Donors have more options than ever before, so transparency is necessary if you hope to gain their trust and long-term support. If you share impactful stories and updates about programs and your fundraising success, you'll gain more attention from donors before, during, and after your campaigns.
Pro Tip: Most people would rather purchase an item or give to a campaign suggested by a trusted friend or family member. Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns are a way to do just that. Adding a peer-to-peer campaign to your next fundraiser will help you spread the word and use recommendations to excite new donors to give.
The best way to boost donations for your organization is by expressing gratitude. You can do this before and during your campaign by treating donors as partners and sharing your mission and fundraising goals.
Once they give, donors should receive automated tax receipts. A donation receipt includes the basics of their gift and gives them critical details on how to get tax deferments. After that, your nonprofit should also send personalized thank-you letters and work to develop relationships.
Pro Tip: Everyone appreciates acknowledgment, but if the only time you contact donors is after they give, they start to feel like an ATM.
Nonprofits can improve donor communications by collecting personal details and adding them to their donor management platform. Throughout the year, nonprofits can use this donor data to send birthday and anniversary cards or holiday greetings and strengthen relationships with their supporters.
Another crucial step to take after your campaign is to monitor your donations online. You should track donations and monitor donor engagement to see where your fundraiser is finding success and where you need to improve. As you pull reports and assess your fundraising efforts, do your best to understand donor behavior and why they gave. This will help you create future strategies.
Pro Tip: Before you track the success of your fundraising, it's important to define your goals and set critical metrics, like:
These key performance indicators (KPIs) give you a fuller view of your fundraising campaign's success and concerns.
Pro Tip: Another way to monitor success is to ask for donor's responses. Sending surveys via email and social media platforms can help you get essential donor feedback.
Once you ask donors for their opinions, listen to them and adjust your online donation forms when necessary. These changes can limit you from repeating the same mistakes next year and help your nonprofit organization save time.
Nonprofit stories raise awareness, create connections with donors, and inspire them to act. Think of the last time you gave to an organization or purchased an item. Can you remember what made you spend that money? Was there a person or story that you had in your head?
Many large corporations excel at storytelling. Typically, they'll create a hero and convince you that you want to become that person. Nonprofit storytelling is unique. The hero of your story must be a compelling character, but they're usually someone who has received your organization's services. Donors take the role of "Yoda" and are essential to help the hero reach their goals.
Effective storytelling is there to explain the need for your organization and direct potential donors to various ways they can make the most difference.
Nonprofits create donation websites to encourage larger and more frequent gifts. One of the best ways to do this is with the addition of features like:
Each of these helps nonprofit organizations educate, inspire, and motivate donors to give.
Donors respond best to campaigns that share their impact. Nonprofit campaigns that show tangible results, statistics, and success stories will get their attention. Organizations effectively leverage social media to share these impact details and updates, and see more visitors convert into donors.
One of the best ways to build trust and credibility is with testimonials. People have learned to ignore advertisements but are much more likely to try a new product or give to an organization that's been reviewed by a real person.
You can add testimonials to your nonprofit website, and donors can add their reviews to the organization's donation forms. They can also film and share endorsement videos from community leaders and influencers via emails and social media.
You can have the best story, images, and impact details, but you won't receive their donation if visitors aren't encouraged to take the next step.
A call to action is essential. You can add calls to action throughout your page's content and with donation buttons. Make your call to action button visible and easy to find. Add bright colors and persuasive language that encourages immediate action. Common call-to-action statements include "Donate Now" or "Give Today!"
Personalized donor communication is critical to relationship building. A personalized donation appeal from your nonprofit organization reminds visitors of their connection to your mission and can entice them to click the link to your donation page. The issue comes when that page is not personalized with donation amounts and programs for that individual.
Nonprofit organizations can segment donors based on demographics, their program interests, and ability to pay. Creating a segmented donation form for different donor types and campaigns can increase donor engagement and help you reach your fundraising goals.
Another thing that may stop donors in their when contributing to your online fundraising campaigns is a complicated donation page. Effective email fundraising campaigns and social media appeals have convinced supporters to click on your donation form. If you've done your due diligence, these individuals have already been segmented to receive optimized content.
When donors reach your donation form, the worst thing you can do is add too many questions and pauses that make them click away. You must streamline the donation process and reduce the number of clicks required to give.
An optimized donation form directly impacts donors' gifts. Your donation form should be quick and hassle-free. More advanced donation forms take less time to load and have no broken links. Before going live, you must address the following issues that can limit you from accepting online donations:
Nonprofits must build relationships with donors if they have any hope of accepting donations online. When thanking donors, you must show appreciation and share how their gifts have impacted the organization.
Treating your donors like partners will strengthen their connection to your organization and encourage them to become long-term supporters. You can do this by involving them in your organization's mission and updating them on the campaign's progress throughout the campaign.
After showing appreciation for a donor's gift, you can share volunteer opportunities and promote upcoming events to excite them about your nonprofit. You should rarely ask for another gift in your donor acknowledgment letter, but educating donors about additional ways to learn about the organization or help can help strengthen relationships.
Zeffy is the only 100% free online fundraising platform. Nonprofits can use this tool to accept online donations, sell raffle tickets and organize events, sell products, and run peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns.
100% Free
“It was extremely easy to set up our account with Zeffy and create different forms for different fundraising activities. Customer service has been terrific. The platform's ability to allow easy communication with donors has been especially helpful. It has exceeded all my expectations." -Rochelle H.
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