Building an Effective Online Donation Process: Expert Tips

Nonprofits have a conversion problem. The data speaks for itself—according to the M+R Benchmarks 2024 report:

• Of desktop users who made their way to a nonprofit’s main donation page, only 16% completed a gift.
• For mobile users, the primary donation page conversion rate was just 10%.

Many organizations are experts at driving traffic to their online donation forms, but plenty struggle to actually secure donations and reach their fundraising goals. Retaining donors is equally challenging—the average nonprofit donor retention rate is consistently around 45%.

To combat these challenges, we recommend optimizing your online donation process from beginning to end, starting with your donation page and finishing with your donor stewardship process. We’ll show you how to do that through the following tips:

1. Customize your donation process to your organization’s needs.
2. Make it easy for supporters to complete their donations.
3. Make the donation process mobile-friendly.
4. Optimize the page’s performance.
5. Promote your donation page across multiple platforms.
6. Personalize the thank-you process.

You’ll need the right fundraising software to accomplish these steps successfully. Explore Kindful’s online fundraising software roundup to understand the current software landscape for nonprofits. Long story short: you’ll want to find a user-friendly platform to create a donation page, monitor fundraising metrics, and steward donors from one system.

With that in mind, let’s dive into the top strategies for strengthening your online donation process.

1. Customize your donation page to your organization’s needs.

Your current donors already know and love your organization, and newer website visitors are curious to learn more about your work. Customize your donation page to your organization’s needs to build familiarity and trust among your supporters.

Take the following steps to create a giving form that reflects your brand’s values and serves as a stepping stone for further supporter engagement:

• Brand the page to your organization. Consistent branding reassures donors that their online contributions go directly toward the cause they care about. Include your nonprofit’s unique logo, colors, and typography on the page to enhance brand recognition and trust.
• Optimize the “submit” button. Choose language specific to giving (“submit my donation” or “donate [$XX]”) over more general terms (“submit”) where applicable.
• Gather relevant information to add to your CRM. While you should limit the number of required fields to keep the donation process simple, give donors the option to provide more information about themselves. For example, you can ask donors about their preferred communication channel to receive updates about their donations. Store their responses in your nonprofit’s CRM database to provide a better experience for donors.
• Showcase the impact of donations. Remind supporters that they’re contributing to a worthy cause. Include images that showcase your mission in action, such as a photo of volunteers working with community members. You can also include specific impact statements for each giving amount. For example, check out how the ASPCA donation page highlights the impact of giving $150:

With these strategies, you can build an online donation page that both inspires your donors and serves your organization’s goals. Donors will be more excited and confident about giving when they know their gifts go directly to a worthy cause.

2. Make it easy for supporters to complete their donations.

As mentioned, your primary goal in designing your online donation page is to ensure that supporters follow through on making their donations.

The key to driving conversions is to make the form as straightforward to use and understand as possible. Donors want to be able to give quickly and easily. Make it simple for them by leveraging these strategies:

• Use clear instructions and simple language. Visitors should understand immediately what the page is for and how they can contribute. Share your organization’s goals and be clear about how donors can help you reach them without using confusing or misleading jargon.
• Enable recurring giving. Allow supporters to make their donations recurring and automate the process so they don’t have to worry about inputting their payment information each month. Recurring gifts add up for your organization, leading to a major impact over time and helping build stronger connections with your donors.
• Add a matching gift search tool. In matching gift programs, employers match donations their employees make to nonprofits. Make it easy for donors to look up their matching gift eligibility by embedding a matching gift search tool into your donation form. With this tool, donors can quickly search for their employer and see all the information they need to submit a matching gift. Some giving platforms even enable auto-submission, a feature that allows donors to send matching gifts from the donation confirmation page. Making matching gifts easy to contribute empowers donors to have an even greater impact, increasing their satisfaction with the giving process.
• Offer suggested donation amounts. Let donors know the types of gifts that other supporters tend to make by presenting preset donation amounts. Supporters will feel reassured that they’re making a donation that will actually have a positive impact. Take a look at how the CARE online donation form highlights giving suggestions using social proof:

When designing your donation page, prioritize convenience and simplicity. Unnecessary steps or confusing instructions can harm your page’s conversion rate, making it essential to design a user-friendly form. Test the page before publishing it on your website to identify potential slowdowns in the giving process that could prevent a donor from completing their gift.

3. Make the donation page mobile-friendly.

Approximately 25% of all donors now use their phones to contribute. Donors want to be able to give anywhere, any time, at the moment of inspiration. Build a mobile-friendly giving process to exceed their expectations. Follow these steps to do just that:

• Ensure your donation form is responsive. This means the form will display clearly and function well whether accessed on a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone screen. Many content management systems (CMSs) will enable this webpage feature automatically, but you should also manually test your form on different devices to catch and fix formatting errors.
• Use large fonts and touch-friendly buttons. By increasing the font size and ensuring all tap targets, such as buttons and links, are appropriately sized, supporters can easily view and interact with your form using smaller devices. Ensure buttons aren’t crowded next to each other, which could cause users to select the wrong item accidentally.
• Enable text-to-donate. In the text-to-donate process, donors text a keyword to your nonprofit and receive a link to your mobile-optimized donation page. This makes the giving process even more convenient, as donors don’t have to navigate through your website to make a gift.

Remember that your supporters’ smartphone use isn’t just restricted to checking your website or texts. Your potential donors also spend their time on social media, and you’ll benefit from meeting them there! Make your online giving form easily accessible on social media by including links in your bio and posts.

4. Optimize the page’s performance.

One essential aspect of creating a convenient donation page is ensuring the form loads quickly and responds to users’ input. According to conversion rate research, page load times between zero and four seconds are best for driving conversions.

Bloomerang’s donation page guide recommends the following tips for improving your donation page’s performance:

• Test the page’s performance to ensure that it loads quickly. We recommend using free tools like PageSpeed Insights to evaluate page loading speeds and identify performance issues. Check both the mobile and desktop reports to ensure both versions of your site are running smoothly.
• Compress images as needed. Large image file sizes are often one of the primary culprits of slow load speeds. Compress and optimize your site’s images using your CMS or a free tool like TinyPNG.
• Optimize your donation page’s code. Look into the backend of your donation page to reduce unnecessary characters that crowd your code. In addition, consider reducing the number of plugins used on your site, which can clutter your code and slow down page load speeds.

Consider working with a web developer to improve your website’s performance. Some issues may require deeper fixes that your organization doesn’t have the capacity or expertise to correct on its own. With a developer’s help, you can set your donation process up for better future success and avoid performance issues that can snowball over time.

5. Promote your donation page across multiple platforms.

As you know, different supporter groups prefer different communication channels for receiving updates from your nonprofit. That’s why you should promote your donation form across various communication platforms, both online and offline, to connect with a broader audience.

Share your donation page via email, social media, digital ads, your website’s blog, in-person events, flyers, and billboards. We recommend taking these steps to promote the form across each of these platforms:

• Make it easy to find your donation page. Use links, buttons, and scannable QR codes to make your form easily accessible online and offline.
• Use multimedia elements to promote the page. Photos and videos help bring your mission to life and show donors exactly who their gifts will help. Include original, high-quality photos and professional video content in your marketing materials.
• Tell your organization’s story. Use your marketing platforms to share the story behind your mission and work, whether through pictures, text posts, videos, or some combination of these elements. Illustrate the connection between donations and your nonprofit’s overall progress and success. For example, you could create an email campaign to share testimonials describing how your organization helped community members recover after an economic downturn.

Track conversion rates to understand which channels and strategies drive the most interaction with your giving form. For example, if your email-to-donation pipeline is particularly strong, analyze which types of emails drive the most giving and how you can replicate that strategy for future email campaigns and other marketing channels.

6. Personalize the thank-you process.

Personalization is a key component in crafting thank-you messages for donors. Supporters want to know that their individual contributions have been recognized and see where those contributions are headed.

Create a personalized thank-you process with the help of the following strategies:

• Send a personalized thank-you message. Use donors’ preferred names in your emails and reference their specific gifts. For example, you might say, “Dear Jolene, thank you for your $150 gift on December 1.” Consider also sending a video with a volunteer or staff member thanking donors by name in a personalized gratitude message.
• Provide a prompt, usable receipt. Send a clearly identifiable donation receipt so donors seeking this official confirmation for tax purposes will have exactly what they’re looking for.
• Continue to steward donors by offering new ways to get involved. Send follow-up emails highlighting additional ways supporters can engage with your mission, whether through social media advocacy, volunteering, or peer-to-peer fundraising. Providing multiple ways to get involved increases the bonds between donors and your organization, encouraging them to continue giving over the long term.

Monitor donors’ responses to your gratitude and stewardship efforts, including which emails they open and which additional engagement opportunities they participate in. Paying attention to donors’ preferences and interests allows you to further personalize your outreach efforts with details about the programs and projects supporters are involved in.

With these tips to guide you, you’ll be ready to create (or revamp) your donation process, from the placement of your logo to the wording on your thank-you receipt. The donation process should be holistic—it doesn’t begin and end with your giving form. How you entice donors to the form, inspire them to complete it, and interact with them after they give all contribute to whether your supporters stick with you for the long haul.

About the Author

Joshua Meyer is the VP of Market Engagement at Bloomerang, a nonprofit fundraising software company. He has over 24 years of experience in fundraising, volunteer management, software, and marketing. Josh is passionate about helping nonprofits strive to fulfill their mission. He believes that nonprofits are essential to our communities and that they deserve the best tools and resources to succeed.

In his role at Bloomerang, Josh helps nonprofits acquire and retain donors through innovative marketing and fundraising strategies. He is also a frequent speaker at nonprofit conferences and events and has previously presented at AFP ICON, Nonprofit Marketing Summit, RAISE, Nonprofit Storytelling conference an numerous other nonprofit gatherings. Josh is committed to helping nonprofits make a difference in the world.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuammeyer/