Several weeks ago I decided to make a donation a local nonprofit organization I worked with years ago and promote them on Twitter, thinking that I might be able to drive a few extra dollars their way.
So I paid a visit to their website to make a donation and copy the url.
I searched and searched for a way to give. I knew that they had the capability because yours truly had set it up all those years ago.
After searching through several pages, I finally came across this paragraph at the bottom of one page:
If you would like to donate via the internet please go to www.JustGive.org or www.guidestar.org . Once on one of those sites you can just search for ORGANIZATION’S NAME. You will then be lead to our donation page.
Folks I couldn’t make this stuff up.
Aaugh!
One of the first rules of thumb is to make it EASY TO GIVE.
If you’ve been in the field of nonprofit fundraising as long as I have – particularly if you’ve been working with smaller organizations – you may well recall the time when boards argued endlessly about whether or not their organization should even have a website.
Ahem.
According to the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, while 2008 certainly wasn’t a red-letter year for fundraising in general, even in today’s tight economic times, nonprofit organizations showed a 43% increase in online gifts. In fact, the total amount of money raised online increased 26% from 2007 to 2008. Further, studies show that about half of those who receive your appeal for funds in the mail will go first to your website (the same holds true for that program officer reviewing your grant proposal, by the way).
It goes without saying that your organization should be collecting email addresses (my newsletter, The Grow Report, recently featured simple, step-by-step instructions for setting up your web-site’s email opt-in box and systematizing your email newsletters). And it should go without saying that one key to online giving lies in genuinely engaging potential donors. This requires a regular schedule of emailed newsletters – at minimum once a month, but preferably weekly or biweekly.
Now, optimize your website for online giving by following these two simple rules:
- Make giving an online donation as easy as possible. Include a conspicuous “Donate” button on every page of your site. Yes, conspicuous. Yes, every page.
- Include a hyperlink “Donate” button on every email sent out by every staff member within the signature line (and what’s to say you can’t request that your board do the same?).
Yes, I know you’re swamped. Yes, I know your resources are limited. Yes, I know that there’s more to online giving than these two steps. Confucius say: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
How can you create an organization that’s donor-focused, year round? Learn why about.com called Simple Development Systems: Fundraising for the one-person development office “a road map to success that can take the scary out and bring in a sense of comfort, self-confidence, and focus about what can and should be done.
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I can’t wait to meet with you personally.
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