Optimizing Your Online Donation Experience in the New Era of Giving

There’s no shortage of generosity among donors but rather a collective desire to support organizations in ways that align with online engagement trends. Still, the likelihood of capturing charitable donations depends on the flexibility and simplicity of the giving experience.

Many nonprofit organizations have traditions rooted in offline donations, where fundraising means collecting checks and cash. Since those avenues are less prevalent now than they once were, it’s critical to continue modernizing donor interactions with new-age online donation experiences. A forward-looking fundraising platform offers donors the smooth e-commerce checkout flows they’re accustomed to while providing supporters the flexibility to give how they prefer.

Here, we’ll walk you through the technology and trends to stay ahead of for richer giving experiences that activate donors. Plus, you’ll see how three organizations achieved an incredible return on investment toward their fundraising goals by upgrading traditional offline experiences to meet the moment.

Accepting Online Donations at Live Fundraisers

The need to accept online donations, which arose out of necessity during the pandemic, has evolved into a crucial component of a robust fundraising strategy. Additionally, the pandemic taught us that virtual alternatives can’t replace the personal nature and relationship-building potential of live fundraising events but can complement live experiences to take them to the next level. 

To strike the right balance, nonprofits must collect donations online while hosting live and hybrid event experiences to nurture ongoing connections.

4 Reasons to Give Donors an Easy Way to Pay Online 

• You appeal to more donors with a simple and intuitive giving process that mirrors the consumer experiences they love from their favorite brands.

• You open future engagement opportunities by automatically capturing donor data in a customer relationship management solution. This makes it easier to engage with donors via tailored email marketing and social media outreach or upgrade supporters to become recurring donors.

• You save time and money with the resources it takes to process checks and cash donations and organize them into your record system.

• You unify the supporter journey with a cohesive donation process that donors can rely on across any fundraising campaign.

How to Accept Donations Online: Your Tech Checklist

Now, you might be wondering how to meet the technical expectations of modern donors. Fundraising platforms are innovating alongside many popular apps and consumer experiences to give your nonprofit everything it needs to become an online powerhouse with simple, streamlined, and efficient donor experiences.

This checklist will help you determine if your current fundraising platform can scale to fit your needs and what to look for in a new platform if it can’t.

Develop a Diversified Campaign Portfolio

Open new pathways for donors to get involved with diversification. The more options they have to support you, the more likely they are to participate and deepen their connection to your cause. 

Did you know? Supporters who participate in multiple campaign types are 4x more valuable than supporters who participate in a single campaign type.

To maximize the opportunities you have to collect online donations, consider running a mix of the following campaigns:

• Crowdfunding
• Events
• Peer-to-peer fundraisers
• Recurring gift campaigns
• Website donations

Additionally, developing a diverse portfolio is vital for your organization’s sustainability. Just as a financial advisor wouldn’t recommend investing all your savings in a single volatile stock, your nonprofit shouldn’t rely on one revenue source to stay afloat.

Offer Conversion-Optimized Donation Forms

Ensure supporters have a clearly defined path to take action when they land on your donation form. This lowers your risk of any friction points leading someone to abandon the process. 

Characteristics of donation forms built to convert include:

• One-second page load speeds and mobile-first designs
• Streamlined checkout flows
• Nudges for donors to cover transaction fees
• Machine learning and AI to suggest the most relevant donation amount to donation form visitors
• Options to embed your form directly on a highly trafficked website page to further streamline the experience
• Nudges to one-time donors to upgrade to a recurring gift
• Abandoned cart notifications that remind supporters to complete a donation

Prioritize Modern Payment Processing

Align your online donation experience with modern donor preferences by offering payment methods they already use and have on their phones. Your donation forms should incorporate digital wallets, allowing donors to bypass getting out a physical card. Any time saved can lead to more completed donations.

Choose a payment processor that speaks to the modern donor with:

• Flexible payment options, including credit cards, digital wallets, Venmo, PayPal, ACH, and crypto
• Prefilled digital wallets and auto-complete address fields for one-click mobile payments
• AI-enabled auto-retry logic to improve credit card acceptance 
• Secure payment processing and accredited standards such as PCI Compliance Level 1 and SSL encryption 

Provide Tax-Compliant Donation Receipts

Remember, the Internal Revenue Service requires nonprofits to send donation receipts after every transaction to maintain a tax-exempt status. If your fundraising platform can guarantee tax receipts get sent out automatically to your supporters, that’s one less thing on your to-do list. It also builds trust with donors when these gift summaries are consistent and timely.

It’s worth checking if your fundraising tools will automate an email that includes a downloadable PDF of the tax-deductible donation receipt. Along with the technical details, any ability to add a personal thank-you to those communications will go a long way.

How to Create a Tax-Compliant Donation Receipt

Craft Automated, Personalized Messages

Go beyond an obligatory donation receipt with your donor communication. Donors often want to receive regular updates, particularly when those messages feel tailored to them. 

That’s where email tools can support you and your team. Look for features such as:

• An email dashboard to customize and manage communications 
• The ability to brand your emails so they stand out in donors’ inboxes and bring in elements of your nonprofit’s personality 
• Simple ways to add photos and videos that bring your message to life
• Emails triggered by certain fundraising milestones to establish momentum
• Merge tag options that add personal details to batch emails

Maximize the Impact of Your Nonprofit Email Campaigns

Lean on Donor Management Tools

Strengthen your connections with supporters after they make a gift with a donor management system. Gaining insights into campaign success and donor behavior trends will help identify growth areas and make it easier to personalize your outreach.

For example, knowing which donors gave to your Giving Tuesday campaign last year provides you with a tailored segment to contact for support in reaching your goal this year. Similarly, you can look at when online donations spiked or slowed down throughout a certain period to plan ahead for momentum-building outreach. Make sure your fundraising platform is well integrated with your donor management system and any other tools you use to ensure data is accurate and streamlined for every campaign.

You also want to support and empower donors with self-serve tools to view their transaction history, manage donations, and make modifications to their giving plans. By allowing people to pause a recurring donation or change the amount they give each month, your nonprofit can see higher retention than if the only option was to cancel.

The Big Impact of Applying New-Era Giving Tools

The Salvation Army Brings a Fresh Take to Accepting Donations 

The Salvation Army recognizes how essential it is to meet their donors where they are with a simple and accessible giving experience. They introduced online payment processing through Classy as more people started going cashless in 2018 and have continued using the fundraising platform to innovate. 

Though adamant about protecting the tradition of its famous red kettles, The Salvation Army added a modern touch of QR codes that send people directly to a simple donation form to give in real time. They even named their creative union of offline and online giving Kettle Pay. 

To level up the experience for The Salvation Army’s supporters and team members handling fundraising and donor management, Kettle Pay captured donor ZIP codes to distribute gifts to donors’ local Salvation Army chapters. It became clear how valuable it was to offer a digital payment option that removed the barrier of cash availability and maintained the spirit and ritual of the red kettles people have come to love.

From Early Innovation to Pandemic Necessity

The following year, The Salvation Army rolled out digital payment options nationwide. They saw growth in digital donations that continued to support them as the pandemic created a new safety and health concern around exchanging physical cash. The original introduction and ease of QR codes went from an early innovation to an everyday tool for giving. 

Donors can give either physical donations or digital offerings when they encounter a kettle. Plus, the growing list of donors who donate digitally gets tracked in The Salvation Army’s donor database. That type of tracking allows the organization to continue building relationships, which wasn’t an option with anonymous cash donors in the past. They were surprised to learn that 85% of digital red kettle donors were new to their donor community. That further emphasized the value of the online donation component to acquire and deepen their relationships with new donors.

Learn More about Classy’s Fundraising Platform

Families in Transition Redefines Annual Events

Families in Transition hosts an annual fundraising event that invites 500 business and civic leaders, clergies, politicians, dignitaries, and friends to come together and enjoy a breakfast on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. As the organization’s flagship fundraising event, it’s experienced quite a bit of innovation through the years. 

In 2022, the event returned to an in-person celebration from its modified virtual version with Classy, but it didn’t lose the element of flexibility that modern attendees love. Each year, a “Fund the Mission” pledge period takes place. Before the pandemic, donors would use the time to give cash, write checks, and fill out donor envelopes that the team would gather and log after the event concluded. The hours of manual work and desire to offer in-person attendees a renewed experience of giving led to a whole new pledge period in 2022.

An embedded donation experience made it easy for event attendees to access everything they need to make a gift on their mobile devices quickly. Families in Transition placed a QR code on event materials like centerpieces and place mats that led attendees to the donation URL they set up ahead of time. Bringing the donations online also solved the challenge of collecting email addresses from cash and check donors. 

Responding to what their donors want to see at different points in their supporter journey is what makes Families in Transition so successful. They preserve traditions while not being afraid to push the boundaries of modernization and see a big impact as a result.

Prevent Child Abuse America Doubles Giving Tuesday Impact  

Prevent Child Abuse America saw the need to balance visual storytelling that engages donors and an even quicker way for them to give online. They decided to work smarter, not harder, with Classy Studio for their Giving Tuesday campaign. 

The Development team leaned into the simplest way to create the campaign, embracing elements like intuitive drag-and-drop functionality and a side-panel editor. Their result was a consistently branded way to donate in minutes that felt like an e-commerce checkout experience. The addition of flexible payment options boosted the overall impact of Giving Tuesday as 35% of donors made gifts with PayPal and mobile wallets. 

This was the first of many online giving upgrades for Prevent Child Abuse America to continue meeting donors with exciting ways to get involved how they prefer.

Takeaways to Bring Together Offline and Online Giving

• Let your brand shine through: Carry the same look and feel into your online presence across physical fundraising materials, like direct mail, QR code flyers, or signage at events, to create consistency in the donor experience, whichever way they choose to give.

• Lead with a strong hook: Start each donation appeal with a compelling reason to contribute. Any time you can share your story and the value of donations ahead of your live event or on your physical fundraising materials, you’re in the best place to increase potential donation totals.

• Choose the best URL to send people to: Send people to the digital destination you think will most effectively inspire action when you use a QR code or something similar to offer an online donation route. This is the time to create a donation website with minimal fields, user-friendly navigation, and clear instructions to help people complete their transactions. You may also be able to send people directly to your donation form if they’re already familiar with your mission and are likely to convert immediately. 

• Provide personalized ask amounts:  Lean on AI and machine learning to showcase real-time ask amount suggestions and help convert each unique donor who arrives on your donation forms.

• Make it mobile-friendly: Provide mobile-first functionality, from formatting to digital wallets. Classy Studio helps you edit your campaign from a mobile view to make small shifts easily.

• Add a donation match: Build momentum and urgency with the opportunity to double the impact of an individual gift with the help of a corporate partner or employee donation match program.

• Follow up: Make sure to capture donor contact information and track which campaign they give to in your fundraising or donation platform. Then, follow up with thoughtful communications that keep them coming back to give again in the future.

Bring the Inspiration to Your Organization

This is your opportunity to get creative about where to unite your offline and online fundraising. Maybe you look at where you can add QR codes to your in-person activities, locations, and events. As you brainstorm with your team about maximizing this giving route, see where your donors respond most and develop a strong action plan to boost generosity year-long.  

Connect with the Classy team to learn more about our industry-leading online fundraising tools to help you achieve your goals.

Copy Editor: Ayanna Julien