year-end fundraising Archives ⋆ Hands-On Fundraising

3 Tips for Preparing Your Website for End-of-Year Giving

Are you ready for year-end fundraising? To succeed, your nonprofit needs to develop its digital presence. Your nonprofit’s website must build connections with existing supporters, draw in support from new donors, and make the donation process as simple as possible.

Make the most of your website

If you don’t have web development or coding experience, optimizing your website may seem scary. However, with the right strategies and tools, your nonprofit can easily revamp its existing website. Whether you’re hosting a peer-to-peer fundraiser or an online Giving Tuesday campaign, it’s important that your website makes a great first impression and encourages supporters to give.

Use the following tips to ensure your website is ready to amp up your year-end fundraising strategy:

Optimize your donation page
Create a strong year-end landing page
Prioritize simple navigation

With the end of the year quickly approaching, it’s vital that you start improving your organization’s website as soon as possible. Let’s begin!

Optimize your donation page

One of the core goals of your year-end giving campaign is to raise money. However, without a well-designed donation page that streamlines the giving process and motivates people to donate, you’ll miss out on key support. It’s important that you focus on your donation page and identify changes you can make to improve user experience and encourage people to complete the donation process.

Let’s take a close look at the features you should add to your nonprofit’s giving page.

Branding

A nonprofit web design’s best practice is to brand your entire website, including your donation page, so it’s unique to your organization. Branding can help your organization build strong connections with supporters, increase brand visibility, and give your nonprofit’s donation page a more professional look, helping to boost credibility.

Incorporate your nonprofit’s color scheme, brand font(s), and images related to your mission into your donation page so that it’s consistent with the rest of your website and marketing materials. Make sure to display your nonprofit’s logo at the top of your donation page. This way, when people navigate to your donation page, they can be sure that they’re giving to your organization.

Mobile matters – be ready

Your donation page should be accessible to computer, tablet, and smartphone users. A mobile-friendly donation page makes the giving process more convenient. That can expand the number of people who will give to your organization. In fact, according to 360MatchPro, mobile-friendly donation pages yield 34% more donations. To make your page mobile-friendly, ensure that mobile users can click buttons and complete all prompts without issues.

Limited prompts

How potential donors experience your website is critical to whether they complete the donation process. Instead of making your donation page too lengthy, which can lead to donor abandonment, stick to only the most essential prompts. This should include the donor’s contact information, donation amount, and billing information. You can always collect more information from your donors later as you form relationships with them.

A CMS with nonprofit-specific features can help you easily apply these elements to your donation page—no coding required. If your nonprofit doesn’t have web design experience or simply wants to streamline the design process, a CMS with automatic mobile-optimization and drag-and-drop functionality will allow you to optimize your site in just a few moments.

Create a strong year-end landing page

When visitors navigate to your website, they should be able to learn about your year-end giving campaign or event without having to do too much digging. Consolidate all the information about your exciting fundraiser into a single landing page to promote a positive user experience and encourage donors to take action.

To design your year-end landing page, incorporate these elements:

Logistical details. Provide site visitors with basic information about your campaign or event, such as the time span, location if you’re hosting an in-person event, and whether there’s a participation fee.
Your campaign’s purpose. Prospective donors will be curious about the goal of your fundraising efforts and how their donations will be used. Tell them how the money raised will be used and how it will further your nonprofit’s mission.
Your nonprofit’s mission. Some people who click on your landing page may not be familiar with your nonprofit. Include your organization’s mission statement and a brief description of your services. This will boost your nonprofit’s credibility and make donors feel more comfortable giving to your organization.
A link to your donation page. Include a link to your giving page or embed your year-end donation form directly into your campaign landing page. This makes it easier for donors to complete the donation process.
An inspiring story and call to action. To motivate supporters to donate, tell a story that shows the important work your nonprofit does and how donors’ contributions make a difference. For example, tell a compelling story about someone your nonprofit helped. Emphasize that donor support is needed to continue your services in the community in your call to action.
Impactful visuals. Your landing page should be both informative and visually appealing. Include visuals that show your nonprofit in action or demonstrate your nonprofit’s impact, such as volunteers working in the community or individuals that your organization services. This will add emotional appeal to your landing page and drive people to donate.

If you’re hosting a fundraising event, include a built-in registration process on your landing page. Embedding your RSVP form directly into your page will streamline signups and likely attract more event participants.

If your website is difficult to navigate, site visitors will be less likely to stick around and may donate elsewhere. Ensure that people can find the information they’re looking for quickly. By prioritizing simple navigation, visitors will have a positive association with your nonprofit, which will motivate them to explore your content and give to your year-end fundraiser.

According to Morweb, the best nonprofit websites have a navigation menu with links to all of their most important webpages, such as their year-end landing page. This navigation menu should be displayed prominently in the page header or sidebar. If your nonprofit has multiple important web pages, consider creating a mega menu where you can create a dropdown list of sub-categories from the main navigation links.

Suggested Alt Text: Create a mega menu to organize links into categories and facilitate easy navigation.

Another important element of simple navigation is using call-to-action buttons to help bring attention to important pages like your giving page. For example, you can include a prominent “Donate Now” button at the top of every webpage so site visitors can easily navigate to your donation form.

The Gist

The first step to a successful year-end fundraiser is optimizing your website. With a strong website, your nonprofit can maximize support and build strong relationships with supporters that can carry over into the new year. Remember to keep your audience in mind and ensure that your website is giving your supporters the most engaging, informative, and user-friendly experience possible. Good luck!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Murad Bushnaq

Murad Bushnaq is the Founder and CEO of Morweb. Since its inception in 2014, Murad has acted as Creative Director and Chief Technologist to help nonprofits spread their vision online through engaging design, intuitive software, and strategic communication.

It’s year-end fundraising time. But you’ll be OK!

My friends, it’s crunch time. Year-end fundraising is here.

Somehow, without asking permission, the calendar has flipped to October. And if you’re a fundraiser, you know what that means, right?

Time to take a deep breath, center yourself, and get ready for year-end fundraising!

Why is year-end so important? Here are some stats from my friends at NEON ONE:

Nearly one third (31%) of annual giving occurs in December
12% of all giving happens in the last three days of the year
53.8% of nonprofits start planning their year-end appeal in October
November and December are the most popular months for making a year-end ask, but some organizations start in September!
28% of nonprofits raise between 36-50% of their annual funds from their year-end ask
Two-thirds of people who give do no research first
79% of volunteers also donate to their organization
60% of nonprofits make between 1-3 donor “touches” for their year-end campaign
Direct mail is the most popular medium for year-end asks, followed by email, website and in-person asks

Thanks, Mary. Now I’m more nervous!

You don’t need to be… yet. Of course, good fundraising year-round sets the stage for year-end success. And one ask a year is definitely sub-optimal. But that’s not a reason to give up now.

Begin with your data

I know you might think of your data as dull. It’s anything but. That information, kept well and used well, is the key to your donors. To their behavior and even – maybe – their preferences. It’s an incredibly valuable asset – IF you take care of it.

My friend Clay Buck says it best:

“If you’re not proactively managing your data, you are literally losing donors and letting real money walk out the door.”
T. Clay Buck

(Read the whole piece – he makes the case and shows his math!)

Here are his suggestions to keep your data clean:

Make it somebody’s responsibility. Data is an asset, it is worth money, make SURE somebody is responsible and accountable for its quality. And make sure they have backup.
Set policies and procedures around data management that are as important as your employee manual. Bloomerang recently published a phenomenal template. Download it. Use it.
Perform regular NCOA (National Change of Address) updates and any other overlays/upgrades that will enhance data quality.
Update as you go – whoever is doing gift entry should also be looking for and updating demographic information as well.
STAY IN TOUCH WITH YOUR DONORS

Communicate with care

Invest in good communications. I’m not talking only about money, but time as well. Having your executive director toss something off on the random Tuesday probably isn’t your best bet.

Talk to beneficiaries. Or volunteers. Get the story from the source and use the story.

Remember that your organization should not be the star of your fundraising communications. There are people out there, waiting to be helpful. They want to feel needed. They want to feel good about themselves.

But they don’t much care about an organization. They care about the work you do. The people you help, the art you make, the way you make something better and kinder.

That’s the way to their hearts. So tell good stories. Show them how they can solve a problem. (Don’t solve it for them to make your organization look good!)

And don’t shy away from emotion. I just interviewed about 5-6 people last week. Some of the stories they shared with me had both the storyteller and me in tears. It was wrenching, to feel their hurt or fear.

But then my job is to honor that sharing with a story that moves people to act. And I take that job very seriously. When someone opens their heart to you, you’d better!

Don’t hesitate to repeat yourself

If you have a great story, use it. Then re-use it in another form.

Direct mail still rules. So I would start with that appeal. But then take the story and break it up for social media posts. Write it, but shorter, for an email or 2 or 3.

Try mailing again with a reminder of what you mailed the first time. (Different outer envelope, a note attached saying, “I hope you saw this”.)

Be creative. Repetition might bore you, but you should be so lucky that your donors are paying close attention to every word you write. (Sorry, but they’re not!)

Follow up with care, too

As gifts come in, celebrate. But don’t forget that this is only the first step.

When you write that appeal, write a thank you letter to match. This will help you overcome the temptation to put thanking donors aside until you can get to it. Be every bit as emotional as you are in the appeal. And be prompt. Donors do notice.

Then plan to report back to them. If you’ve told them about a need, and they’ve responded with gifts, they deserve to know what happened. How did their generosity solve the problem?

You know the story’s end. They don’t… until you tell them how they helped.

There’s no secret sauce here

Nothing I’ve suggested is new. These are tried and true practices for successful fundraising.

But the key isn’t knowing that, it’s acting on it.

Go get ‘em!

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

10 Ways to Make The Biggest Impact with Small Gift Donors

When you have multi-million dollar gifts coming in, it can be easy to turn your attention to the foundations and philanthropists behind those big numbers.

And easy to forget about the small gift donors whose contributions of $5 to $5,000 dollars are the foundation of your success. The vast majority of charitable giving comes from individuals — their value can not be forgotten.

Furthermore, in a world of increasing online giving, small gift donors are of the utmost importance. The median size of an online gift was $178 in 2016.

With gifts of any size, these donors are critical to the success of any nonprofit and it’s these same donors who often grow to give larger gifts as their investment into your mission grows and finances change.

Providing small gift donors with the big impactful experiences they deserve doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few ideas to keep them engaged, show them gratitude, and retain their support.

1. Social proof

When they publicly align themselves with a cause, donors are saying something important about the way they view the world and getting peer recognition for doing so. That’s called social proof and you can make it even easier for donors by providing badges and filters they can use on their social profiles.

2. Gamification

Gamified experiences are gaining steam in just about every business department — marketing, human resources, sales, and more. Playing a game and achieving a reward releases dopamine in the brain that makes participants happy and encourages them to participate again. You can gamify engagement with your nonprofit by rewarding supporters for various actions — from gifts, to social shares, to event attendance, and beyond.

3. Mobile experiences

The average American adult spends 86 hours per month on their smartphones, and the number is growing among younger generations. To make an impact with small gift donors, you need to meet them where they are — on their mobile phones. Text-to-give campaigns are a great start, but it’s also critical to have a mobile-optimized website and easy mobile donation experience.

4. Events

Fancy galas are an excellent way to celebrate your multi-million dollar donors, but don’t forget about your small gift givers when it comes to hosting events. Donor appreciation events can be done on a budget. The most important thing to remember is to ensure the event adds value to your donors’ lives in some way. For example, host a mixer where your young professional donors can network, put on a race that gives donors a goal to work towards, or bring in a speaker that they wouldn’t have access to elsewhere.

5. Time limits

Everyone likes to accomplish a goal. You can encourage group engagement with small gift donors by setting a big goal and a time limit to reach it. For example, Amplify Austin does an annual one-day giving event to bring small donors together in service of meeting a challenge number. Movember is a well-known campaign that encourages participants to raise money for men’s health issues for the entire month of November.

6. User-generated content

User-generated content is a cost-effective way to engage small gift donors. Not only do existing donors get excited about sharing to the campaign, it creates an excellent marketing tool for your organization. A great example is the #GirlsCount campaign by One. They asked celebrities and real people to submit a video of themselves reading a number from one to 130 million — the number of girls who don’t have access to an education. Once completed, all the user-generated content will be curated into an epically long video.

7. Donations as a gift

Particularly during the holiday season, providing donors with the ability to make donations as a gift to another person is a great way to increase engagement. It serves the purpose of social proof and helps make shopping easier. Ensure you have an inspired way to tell the recipient about the donation made on their behalf — whether it’s a simple thank you card or a small token of appreciation. Charity:Water even does the reverse by allowing people to ask for donations in lieu of birthday gifts.

8. Stay in touch

A simple way to make a big splash with small gift donors is just to stay in touch. Keeping donors informed regularly of how their support is making a difference is a must for retention. This can be tough to do with a big donor base, but email automation software makes it much easier. You can set emails at regular intervals so that every donor feels remembered.

9. Storytelling

Storytelling, like gamification, has an impact on the brain. When we hear stories, our brain releases the neurochemicals associated with making us pay attention and feel empathy. Stories, therefore, are an excellent way to get donors to connect with your mission. Tell the stories of the individuals impacted by your work. Video is a great way to convey the message, but written stories work well too.

10. Make gifts tangible

It’s easier for donors to connect with giving when they feel a tangible connection between their dollars and what is being provided. Even if you can’t ensure exactly where each donation is going, you can create a symbolic connection between an item and a donation amount. Heifer International, for example, does an excellent job of this. You can give a goat, launch a business, or send a girl to school.

Small donors are of great importance to your nonprofit. Keep them engaged, show them gratitude, and give them easy opportunities to increase their support. The results could be gigantic.

Taylor Burke is a contributor for TechnologyAdvice.com and former nonprofit marketing director. She writes about marketing and communications.

Tips for your year-end campaign [INFOGRAPHIC]

Your year-end campaign matters. It’s true, 25-35% of giving takes place between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Have you checked your lists not once but twice? Is your fundraising appeal ready to go? How will you handle a multi-channel campaign?

Need year-end advice to finish the year strong? Here’s an infographic from MobileCause I want to share with you.

MobileCause is spilling the secrets and tools every nonprofit needs to develop its most successful multi-channel, multi-touch year-end campaign yet. Check out their infographic below or here for the best data-backed strategies guaranteed to have you celebrating.

Are you settling for a lazy year-end fundraising message?

How are you handling your end of year appeals online?

A look at my Facebook feed shows many examples of organizations making the most of the year’s end.

The messaging isn’t always as good as the causes, however.

Here are some that caught my eye – and why I think they hit or missed.

Great cause. But hello, your fundraising goals are your (internal) problem.

Your fundraising goals are not motivating outside your office. They’re not compelling. It’s a lazy way to make a case for supporting your cause.

If it’s true that something awful will happen if your goal isn’t met, then tell us why giving is critical right now.

Think like a donor: what changes if I give? Focus your thoughts on active verbs: change, stop, save.

Tell me why a gift will support some terrific athletes with developmental disabilities. And why the need is urgent now.

Tell a story, connect me to one person, and make it emotional.

Again with the inside talk.

I get it. Your campaign is crazy-important to you. And you probably look at “End-of-Year Campaign” a million times a day, obsessively checking your progress. (I know I did!)

But capitalizing your internal campaign name doesn’t make it a thing to the outside world.

Tell me about why women’s history is so important. (And if you can’t make a compelling case for women’s history right now, then when?)

The language is confusing, too. The syntax is all over the place. “The first museum in our nation’s capital to show the full scope of the history of its women and will serve as a guiding light to people everywhere.” What?

Confusing people is not a good idea if you want them to act.

Focus less on the museum and more on how it affects women.

People are easier to relate to than a building. I wish they’d taken more from Albright’s quote and built on that.

Two words (Fight hate.) and SPLC does the job.

“Hate” is a strong word. But they’re fighting a strong fight.

And those who respond to a message this powerful are likely to take action.

Then SPLC explains why membership matters – to the donor. What you can achieve by giving.

Organizations like SPLC will be critical in the coming years. They need to take advantage of the current climate – and I think this does.

You have to be hiding not to know what’s happening right now in Aleppo.

Who isn’t horrified by the situation?

UNICEF makes it timely and urgent with “the past 48 hours”.

And they use strong language to make a case with an emotional punch – “slaughtered” “desperate” “evacuation”.

Then the photo of children and the headline makes it all even more poignant. How do you look in those eyes and not want to act?

Of course, your year-end fundraising is bigger than Facebook.

But messaging is important, whatever channel you’re using. I know we’re all rushed, but resist the lazy.

You shouldn’t wait until now to build a really persuasive case for support. It’s the answer to a simple question: why should I give to you?

So please, remember your financial goals are not interesting.

Look for the emotion – that’s what ties us together as humans.

People are more likely to be feeling right now – feeling generous, feeling concerned, feeling nostalgic.

Help them turn those feelings into action for your good cause!

Top photo thanks to Ryan McGuire at Gratisography