4 Easy Fixes that Will Supercharge Your Online Fundraising

Online fundraising brings in a significant and growing amount of support for nonprofit organizations. The Blackbaud Institute’s recently released Charitable Giving Report: How Fundraising Performed in 2017 reveals that 7.6 percent of overall fundraising revenue, excluding grants, was raised online in 2017 representing a new record high.

While the nonprofit sector’s online fundraising performance is noteworthy, the results can be much better. Many things go into a successful online fundraising effort. However, some professionals have found that they can supercharge online charitable giving by making some easy fixes.

Here are just four ways you can enhance your “Donate” button or tab to get vastly superior results:

1.  Express a Value Proposition

Online for Life, now known as the Human Coalition, looked at how a donate tab’s value proposition affects giving. This pro-life organization already had a donate tab that read “Save a Baby,” which became the control in a test to find a better tab label. The organization test a new tab reading “Save a Child” and another stating “Give.”

The results, reported by NextAfter, uncovered a less effective and a more effective approach. The “Give” tab resulted in 30.5 percent less revenue while the “Save a Child” tab resulted in increased revenue of 62.2 percent compared to the control.

NextAfter believes, “This simple change reminded donors of the long-term impact of their gift. We want to save a baby from abortion because of who they will become over time.” In other words, the organization took its value proposition and made the impact more long term. Asking people to “Give” is abstract while asking them to “Save a Child” is concrete.

Building a better button or tab that tells donors the impact their gift will have, rather than simply asking them to give, can raise substantially more money.

2.  Find and Emphasize the Right Call to Action

Jews for Jesus already had a successful online fundraising effort. People could click the “Donate” tab on the navigation bar at the top of each website page. Nevertheless, the organization tested different options to find an even more effective approach.

The control was the existing design with a “Donate” tab. The test involved adding a donation button in the upper right corner of the website header appearing on multiple pages, not just the Home page. One button read “Make my Gift” while the other read “Donate Today!” The buttons were placed in addition to the existing tab.

The “Make my Gift” button resulted in a 306.1 percent increase in total revenue, according to NextAfter.

NextAfter found that the “Donate Today!” button ended up decreasing the amount of traffic being driven to the donation page by 9.6 percent. The group speculates that “by putting the call to action in the context of the donor ‘Make my Gift’ instead of a command ‘Donate Today!,’ the donors were able to align better [to the requested] action and were more likely to click.”

As the Jews for Jesus learned, it’s important to find the right call to action. It’s also important to effectively emphasize that call to action.

3.  Make Finding the Donate Button or Tab Easy

The Dallas Theological Seminary had a “Donate” tab on the navigation bar at the top of its web page. To encourage more contributions, the Seminary tested highlighting the tab in purple, the organization’s signature color. The Seminary also tested a purple highlighted tab reading “Support DTS.”

NextAfter discovered that the purple-highlighted “Donate” tab was the most effective, generating 2,682.3 percent more revenue!

While both of the purple tabs were able to increase revenue significantly, NextAfter believes “the ‘Donate’ tab provided the additional clarity necessary to increase not only traffic to the page but also the subsequent donor conversion. We need to make it easy for donors to find the path we want them to take by being both clear in the messaging and visually emphasizing the path we want them to take.”

Make it easy for website visitors to support your organization by using a prominent, static donate button that can be easily found on every page. The best location for the button is in the upper right-hand corner of the page header. David Hartstein, at Wired Impact, suggests:

15 Things You Might Not Know about Planned Giving

There’s a lot about planned giving that’s worth knowing and that can help you raise more money. Fortunately, it’s not necessarily all complicated.

Yes, vast differences exist from one planned giving program to the next. Some nonprofit organizations invest heavily in planned giving with dedicated staff and marketing. Other charities invest little and have development generalists talk with donors about gift planning from time-to-time. Despite the differences from one organization to another, there are a large number of points in common.

To help you be a more successful fundraising professional, I want to share 15 insights about planned giving:

1.  Almost everyone has the ability to make a planned gift. A common myth about planned giving is that it is just for rich people. However, that’s not the case. For example, anyone who owns a retirement account, a life insurance policy, appreciated stock, or a home can be a planned gift donor. As H. Gerry Lenfest, the mega-philanthropist, wrote in the Foreword to Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing,  “Planned gifts are the major gifts of the middle class.”

2.  The average age of someone who makes their first charitable bequest commitment is 40-50. Another misconception about planned giving is that it is something that old people engage in. While that’s true for certain planned gifts (e.g., gifts from an IRA, or gifts to set up a non-deferred Charitable Gift Annuity), donors of any age can create a charitable provision in their Will or set-up a Beneficiary Designation.

3.  High-income women are more likely than men to use complex gift planning tools. High-income women (those with an annual household income of $150,000 or more) are more likely than high-income men to seek expert financial advice. They are also more likely to establish Donor-Advised Funds or Charitable Remainder Trusts. So, do not ignore female prospects. Instead, be prepared to talk with high-income women about sophisticated giving options.

4.  Using a challenge grant for a planned gift appeal can create urgency leading to action. Research shows that people tend to avoid conversations or decisions involving their own demise. One way to shift the focus of the planned giving conversation from death is to use a challenge grant to encourage prospects to think about making a planned gift commitment so that the organization receives an extra benefit. A challenge grant also creates a sense of urgency that gives donors a reason to act now rather than further delay making a planned gift decision.

Is Online #Fundraising Really Worth Your Time?

For years, nonprofit organizations have invested significant amounts of time and money to build online fundraising efforts that have steadily evolved to embrace more and more sophisticated technologies and methods. But, are those efforts really worthwhile?

The Blackbaud Institute’s recently released Charitable Giving Report: How Fundraising Performed in 2017 can help us answer that question.

The news about overall philanthropy in 2017 is good. Blackbaud reports:

A convergence of economic, political, technological, and philanthropic trends helped boost giving in 2017. The 4.1% increase in giving during 2017 was a substantial jump compared to relatively flat growth in 2016. A strong stock market, spikes in giving in response to political issues or disasters, and the continued shift to digital giving all influenced giving in 2017. This growth was also fueled by a 5.1% increase in giving during the final three months of 2017. The potential implications of new U.S. tax laws may have contributed to this late surge in charitable giving.”

The news about online giving is also good. Blackbaud has found:

• 7.6% of overall fundraising revenue, excluding grants, was raised online representing a new record high.
• Online giving grew 12.1% in 2017 compared to 2016.
• 21% of online transactions were made using a mobile device in 2017.
• The average online donation is $132.
• 20.1% of online giving happened in December.

Online is an important source of donations for nonprofit organizations of every size as the following chart illustrates:

Update: Is the Nonprofit Sector Ignoring the #TimesUp Movement?

I’m surprised. You might be, too.

At the end of last month, I published the post “#TimesUp Alert: Nonprofit Organizations are Not Immune.” The post is one of my least read articles so far this year. By comparison, several old posts that I have not promoted for a long time have attracted far more readers during the past week. Given the seriousness of workplace sexual harassment and assault, I am disappointed that my post on the subject has not received more attention.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not whining. I’m simply concerned that an important, timely issue facing the nonprofit sector is apparently of little interest to fundraising professionals and nonprofit managers.

Why do you think my previous #TimesUp post has attracted so few readers?

It could be that folks do not believe it’s really a significant issue for the nonprofit sector; after all, we do good so we must be good. Or, it could be that nonprofit professionals don’t believe they have the power to bring change to their organizations, so they don’t bother thinking about it. Or, it could be something else. What do you think?

Interestingly, the percentage of post readers who responded to my one-question anonymous survey was above average. While the broader universe of potential readers might not have been interested in the article, those who did read the piece were highly engaged.

The poll was admittedly unscientific. Nevertheless, I owe it to those who responded to share the results:

3 Powerful Ways to Get Your Monthly Donors to Give More

A few weeks ago, I published the post “How to Get Last Year’s Donors to Give More this Year.” Guest blogger Joe Garecht shared some great advice for increasing giving. However, the post did not specifically address the issue of monthly giving. That led to a reader comment.

Larry Little, President of Guardian Angel Basset Rescue, raised some important questions:

Our revenues are in the $300k range but approximately 30% of that comes through our monthly giving program. My question is about asking monthly donors to increase their amounts. How often should that be done? And should you segment your list and ask that segment every 18 months?”

First, I want to congratulate Little for having a robust monthly-giving program. Well done!

Second, I thank Little for inspiring this week’s post. While I could have given him a quick, brief response, I realized the topic deserves more attention and that it would likely be of interest to many of my readers. So, I invited expert Erica Waasdorp, President of A Direct Solution and author of the best-selling book Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant, to share her wisdom to help us better understand how to inspire greater giving from monthly supporters. I thank her for her insights:

 

It’s wonderful to see how much the focus is shifting to monthly giving, and it’s starting to really pay off for nonprofit organizations. Here are just two recent statistics from the most recent Blackbaud Luminate Online Benchmark Report:

Expanding relationships with existing supporters was the name of the game this year as we saw a 20.4% growth in sustainer revenue.”

Viewing online revenue as one great big pie, we saw a larger slice of the pie—8.4% more—coming from sustainer gifts in 2017.”

Today, I’m not going to write about how to convert your donors to give monthly. Today, I’m going to focus on how to generate more money from your existing monthly donors.

Just because they’re now giving more money than as single-gift givers doesn’t mean it ends there. Oh no! There are three ways you can actually ask your monthly donors to give more money:

1.      Ask for a monthly upgrade.

2.      Ask for an additional gift.

3.      Ask for a legacy gift.

Ask for a monthly upgrade.

People typically ask me two questions: A) How soon after a donor starts giving monthly can I ask for an upgrade? B) How often can I ask for an upgrade?

Before I address the timing questions, let me just point out that donors upgrade because they have been stewarded effectively. Totally true. And this also pertains to monthly donors. That’s why I always “hammer” on the importance of sending a hard-copy thank-you recognition letter even if the monthly donor came in online.

So let’s assume that you’ve done this part right. And let’s assume that your donor gives monthly through his or her credit card. And let’s assume that you send the donor a quarterly newsletter with some great stories and updates on how the donor’s giving makes a difference.

I’ve seen organizations that started to upgrade right away. I’ve seen organizations that started to upgrade three months after a monthly donor joined. Frankly, I think that’s just too soon. Yes, you may get some donors to upgrade when you ask, but I think you’d also come across as much greedier than you may wish to. That could alienate some supporters.

Your donor has just started to get used to giving monthly. They’re just getting acquainted with your stewardship efforts. They have just started to realize the convenience of giving this way.

You pay taxes typically once a year; you update your budget once a year, so I suggest asking for an upgraded amount once a year, ideally between 10 to 12 months after the donor gave monthly for the first time. That’s when you can make a legitimate case for the increase in cost for xyz service, and ask the donor if he can “give just a few dollars more a month” to help the children/client/animals.

And, as Joe Garecht mentioned in his earlier post, the four elements of asking monthly donors to increase their monthly gift are indeed: