Abby Jarvis
A potential donor visits your website, but never makes a donation. It happens all the time, but have you done everything you can to prevent that? Abby Jarvis joins us today to share some tips on creating a simple online donation process.~Kivi
Guest Post by Abby Jarvis of Qgiv
The decision to donate to a charity is an emotional one. From the moment a donor decides to give to the second they make the payment, it’s important not to disrupt their feelings and their desire to contribute. But people are easily distracted! Nonprofits need to keep them on track through the whole process.
So, how do you optimize every part of your donors’ experience?
1. Make sure that they’re able to get to your website.
Anywhere you make appeals, share stories, or post updates, give people a link to your website. It sounds basic, but I regularly see beautiful, compelling content from nonprofits that don’t offer a link to their website. Reading a great story and having to pause to search for the organization’s page just disrupts their emotional connection to the story. Give them a link! This includes social media profiles as well as newsletters and other publications.
2. Streamline your site.
One secret to maintaining donors’ emotional connections is keeping your branding uniform. If you use a solid brand or color scheme on your site, for example, it should be reflected in your newsletter, donation page, and publications. That way, the look and feel of your site will be relatively seamless from one channel to the other, and the switch will be minimally distracting to donors.
Good design is another secret. Sites should be visually engaging, but they should also be relatively simple. Don’t distract your donors with flashing text, odd fonts, or busy patterns and colors. A well-designed, easy-to-use site will help keep donors’ attention.
3. Make your website easy to navigate.
The average Internet user only spends a few seconds searching a page for information they need. If they don’t find what they want, they click away. Look at your website from your audience’s perspective: how many clicks does it take to land on your donation page? Does the “donate” button stand out, or is it hidden away? Easy navigation will keep people connected with the desire to give instead of the frustration of trying to find the right page.
4. Keep your donation page simple.
Donating shouldn’t be a chore – people hate chores! People are more likely to donate when the process is simple and straightforward. When customizing your nonprofit’s donation page, keep it short. 80% of donors won’t complete a transaction when they’re required to answer more than two questions (aside from normal information like billing addresses and payment types). Even if their answers aren’t required to finish their payment, they’re still discouraged by additional fields – 10% of donors won’t finish a gift if there are more than two extra non-mandatory questions on the form.
Keeping your donors connection to their emotional desire to give is important! You’ll never be able to keep them totally free from interruptions, but keeping your site and donation page streamlined and easy to use will help. Your donors want to support you – make it easy for them to do!
Abby Jarvis is a blogger, marketer, and communications coordinator for Qgiv, an online fundraising service provider. When she’s not working at Qgiv, Abby can usually be found working on freelance writing projects or binge-watching sci-fi shows on Netflix.
