All nonprofit organizations are dealing with the shift from traditional to online donations. Your website’s online donations page is critical to bringing in these new donations via credit/debit card and electronic funds transfer. How effective is your online donation page? Here are ten tips for improving its performance.

Optimize for Mobile

About a quarter (26%) of all online donations are currently made via mobile devices. If your online donation page is not optimized for mobile screens, you could lose out on those donations. Make sure your donation page looks good and is completely usable on all types of mobile phones.

Streamline the Page

When a supporter navigates to your donation page they’ve already made the decision to donate. You don’t want anything to get in the way of that happening.

This means that you want to minimize all distractions on your donation page. Get rid of any extraneous content that doesn’t lead users to make a donation. Especially remove links that take users away from the donation page. This may mean removing your site’s navigation bar or menu as well as any links to other pages or external sites. You want them to focus on the giving, not on anything else.

That also means removing or reducing any element on the page that doesn’t directly lead to making a donation. Get rid of any images or videos on the page, and keep your messaging short and sweet. You don’t want to distract your donors from donating.

Reduce the Number of Required Fields

Here’s something that turns off potential donors: having to fill in too many fields on the donation form. You want them to enter only the bare minimum of information you need. If you don’t need a specific piece of information to process the donation, don’t make it a required field.

Don’t Ask Too Many Questions

Building on the previous tip, you can still include fields that you’d like donors to fill out but aren’t required. Think twice about that. A donation form is not the place to conduct an in-depth survey. You don’t need demographic data to process a donation. In fact, the more questions you ask, the more likely it is that potential donors will remain potential and leave the page without donating.

Don’t make it difficult for people to give you money. Remove any obstacles that may be in their way. If you don’t absolutely positively need a piece of information, don’t ask for it. Keep it simple and you’ll close more donations.

Provide Clear Instructions

Don’t expect all your potential donors to be tech-savvy, especially if they’re older. Unlike you, many haven’t done a lot of online shopping or online giving. This may be all new to them, so provide any necessary instructions for how to fill out the donation form. Make your instructions clear and concise. You don’t want them to have any questions – you just want them to fill in the information and make a donation. (If they do have questions, make sure you include a “contact us” link so someone can assist them personally.)

Use Different Submit Button Text

Too many donation pages revert to the same unexciting text for the very final piece of the transaction, submitting the donation. Instead of labeling that button “Submit,” try something more in line with your mission, such as “Donate Now,” “Make Your Donation,” or “Make a Difference Today.” It’s a small detail that will make your page more impactful and less generic.

Create Custom Pages for Specific Segments

You’re not limited to having a single donation page. You can better target your appeals to specific types of donors by creating custom donation pages for specific donor segments. These pages may contain similar transaction forms but much different imaging and graphics. For example, you may want to create unique pages for:

• First-time donors
• Recurring donors
• High-value donors
• Lapsed donors
• Former event attendees

And remember to create different “Submit” buttons for each segment, too!

Suggest Donation Amounts

There is much research that supports the notion that when you suggest specific donation amounts you increase the average donation size. So don’t include a blank “Amount” box; instead, offer options for four or five different donation amounts, with a final blank box for “Other.”

You should also tailor these donation amounts to specific donor segments – another good reason to create segmented donation pages. You want to suggest higher amounts for high-value donors than you would to first-time donors, for example.

Offer Recurring Giving Options

You know that recurring donations represent a more stable and predictable source of income than relying on a series of one-time donations. Always include an option for recurring donations on your donation pages, and include messaging to encourage signing up for recurring giving.

Offer Multiple Payment Options

Finally, make sure that you let your donors pay however they want to pay. That means offering multiple payment options on your donation page – credit card, debit card, electronic funds transfer, even Apple Pay and Google Pay. The more payment options you include, the easier it is for your donors to give.

This also means choosing an online payment provider, like GIVE BACK GATEWAY, that offers multiple customer payment options. You don’t want to be limited to just one or two types of payment; you want a provider that offers your donor base all of their preferred payment options.

When you’re looking for a digital giving platform for your nonprofit organization, contact the online giving professionals at GIVE BACK GATEWAY. We have a payment processing program that will work for you!