Around this time of year, nonprofits are in full-swing for year-end fundraising. With nearly 50% of all fundraising coming from the last 3 months of the year, it’s no wonder why nonprofits have a big push at the end. At Elevation, come October and November, we start getting questions from nonprofits on how they can optimize their websites for better results.
Here’s a comprehensive list of 4 strategies to optimize your nonprofit website to drive better year-end fundraising results.
1. Set-Up a Payment Processor
Choosing a payment processor for your nonprofit website can be a challenge. Nonprofits must balance keeping overhead costs at a minimum, while not compromising functionality. Generally, nonprofits have 2 options when it comes to choosing a payment process for their nonprofit website.
- Go through a merchant account and integrate a third-party such as Salesforce for donor management, tax filing, advertising, etc. More work, less expensive.
- All-in-one processing solutions that includes payment processing, billing, taxing, promoting, and donor management. Less work, more expensive.
Ultimately, based on the budget and size of your nonprofit, you should choose a payment processor based on those qualities. Thorough research of your options will help you pick the best payment processor for your nonprofit website.
2. Include Social Proof
Has your nonprofit ever hosted a fundraising event such as a 5K Walk and Run, or held an all-day marathon? These types of fundraisers are great opportunity to add social proof.
Social proof is “the demonstration that others have gone before you and done it. They’ve purchased that book, tweeted that page or shared that photo on Facebook“. In the context of nonprofits, this means showing potential donors that others have already donated.
A great way of doing this is have a section of your Homepage or main event page dedicated to social proof. You can include the fundraising goal, amount currently raised, and the number of donors that have contributed so far.
3. Prioritize a Mobile-Friendly Donation Page
One of the biggest trends in nonprofit website design and online giving is responsive design. Responsive design is all about making it easy for users to peruse the internet just as easily on their desktop as on their mobile devices. This means different font sizes, graphics, scrolling, and more.
Online giving has been steadily increasing over the last decade once nonprofits started incorporating a digital strategy into their fundraising efforts. Over the last 2 years, a major game changer that has since affected online giving is responsive web design. Since 2014, responsive design has nearly doubled in online giving.
4. Start a Social Media Campaign
Did you know that 55% of those who interact with a cause via social media are more likely to take further action in the form of donations, volunteering, fundraising, etc? Social media is more important now than it has ever been. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, G+ and the like are new channels of communication better connecting your to your donors reaching broader audiences.
Create a social media campaign for your year-end fundraising push and have it visible on your nonprofit website homepage, donations page, social media biography, etc. Choose an original and intuitive hashtag and publish content on a consistent basis.
