Multiplying donation buttons on your site

One of the most overlooked online marketing opportunities is the Donate Now button, which is typically a single button (or link) on the home page of a site. Clicking the button displays an online form page where a visitor can choose to contribute.

You can increase the potential for a donor response by increasing the number of places on your site that you ask for support. Note that we don’t endorse randomly scattering Donate Now buttons throughout your site. Instead, take an integrated, thoughtful approach, and follow these pointers:

• Be position-savvy. Visitors to your site view numerous pages. Make sure that donation buttons or links appear in as many spots as possible (without going overboard, of course). Visible areas of your site include

  • The navigation bar
  • The upper-right corner of each page
  • The lower-center of the page
  • The top or sides of the site’s pages, for banner- or button-sized ads

  Ask in different ways. Rather than repeat the phrase Donate Now on every page, use different terms that draw attention, such as these examples:

  • Make a Difference
  • Help Change a Life
  • How to Contribute
  • Ways You Can Help
  • Get Involved Today
  • Click to Contribute
• Latch on to content. When you share a success story on your site or spotlight someone in need, ask for support. In addition to placing a button following the content, include links to donate within the article.
• Associate with a specific giving opportunity. Consider the types of visitors your site attracts and why they’re interested in learning about your cause. Someone might be more likely to give if your request is tied to a specific area of help. For example, you can link a request for a donation directly to research funding or to provide meals for a family in need. Be specific. You can also use donation buttons that specify different donation amounts as opposed to leaving the dollar amount blank. For example, use some donation buttons that say “Donate $5 Now” and others that ask for $25 or $100. By giving a range of prompted amounts you may get more response.
• Highlight alternatives. Not everyone wants to, or can, donate money. You might offer information about how to participate in a fundraising event or write a member of Congress to speak out on an issue. The website for Surfrider Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting oceans and beaches, has a variety of opportunities to help. For example, you can click a button to locate a chapter near you and get involved as a volunteer. In addition, there is a Take Action page on the site (see Figure 4-1) that clearly shows you how to take action by contacting various agencies or Congress and asking for support or change to particular programs. The organization does a good job of quickly providing you with options for getting involved and becoming a donor (via paid membership levels) by using clear calls to action and compelling images.

• Encourage social connections. One of the keys to building an active, loyal donor base is staying in touch. Social media and mobile interactions provide the perfect opportunity to keep awareness levels high and to ask for donations, long after someone leaves your website. Just make sure that you provide plenty of opportunities while people are visiting your site to like your Facebook page or follow your organization on Twitter or Instagram (or any other social media platform in which your nonprofit is active).

  Use your Facebook page to host a Facebook Live video. The real-time video is shot through the camera on your mobile phone or computer desktop and it is shown live to all your followers. Plus, as they share or interact with you via video, it is shown on their friends’ newsfeeds. Facebook Live is a great way to promote an upcoming fundraiser or other event, and to ask for a donation — in real time!

• Make a final plea. Before a visitor leaves your site, display a final request for help in a pop-up window. Rather than ask for a cash donation at this point, ask the person to register to receive additional information on supporting your organization. Collect only a name and an e-mail address, to keep the process quick and unobtrusive. You can then automatically send e-mail with specific requests for donations.

  This type of follow-up e-mail is the perfect time to spotlight a story about your cause and then ask prospective donors to sign up for your newsletter. Even if they don’t donate directly from your e-mail request, you can keep them informed and grow their activity level.

Passing the hat (pass-alongs)

As you might know from working with volunteers, sometimes these people are passionate about your cause. Because their enthusiasm and dedication are infectious, not long after they start working for your cause, they recruit plenty of their friends and family members. In the corporate world, this concept is referred to as creating buzz, or word-of-mouth marketing; people in the nonprofit world call it pass-along marketing.

Suppose that 5 people who are drawn to your site discover something useful or important about your organization. They want to not only help but also share the site with others. If each of those individuals tells 10 more people they know and perhaps at least half of those people then choose to educate 10 of their friends, your cause has been shared with several hundred people just in that short cycle!

If your cause can motivate just one person to act, your site can also provide the tools to help that person spread the word to others. Here are three simple techniques:

• Add a link or button on your site that asks visitors to send information to a friend. A visitor who clicks the button can forward a message from you to a friend.
• Provide social sharing buttons that allows visitors to share information on your website by pushing it out on social media sites. With the click of a button, it’s easy to share an article, a tip, an event notice, or any other information with friends by posting it to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or other sites. Your site can even encourage visitors to post automated messages to their social media accounts when making a donation or a pledge to help. Their friends see a message such as, “I just made a donation to Surfrider to help clean up the ocean. If you want to join the cause, visit Surfrider.com.”

• Allow site visitors to start their own fundraising campaigns for your cause and invite their friends. Peer-to-peer or friend-to-friend fundraising is a great way to let site visitors and loyal donors spread your organization’s message. Organizations such as Charity: Water (www.charitywater.org) encourage visitors to engage their friends in fundraising through personal campaigns. The site makes it easy for visitors to set up their own fundraising pages and invite friends to donate or get involved. Charity: Water also lets visitors make a pledge to raise donations on their birthday (see Figure 4-2).

  If you’re already using a nonprofit service provider, such as Blackbaud (www.blackbaud.com), for various fundraising tools, they often offer friend-to-friend campaign tools. Other providers that also include integration with social media platforms are Razoo (www.razoo.com) and CauseVox (www.causevox.com).

Building personalized pages for events

Expanding fundraising tools for volunteers and event participants is part of the friend-to-friend fundraising trend. In this case, the personalized donation pages are used with specific fundraising events and may even be integrated with event registration, as opposed to the general fundraising campaign we mention earlier. For example, the easiest way to help volunteers reach their donation goals for your organization is to offer personalized web pages to promote a specific fundraising event (such as a walk-a-thon).

Personalized pages are typically miniature websites that constituents can build themselves by using templates (or a selection of preformatted web pages). A page usually includes an organization’s logo, information about its cause, event details, and the personal story of the fundraiser. Pictures and the real-time tracking of donation goals can also be added to the site.

FirstGiving (www.firstgiving.com) offers this type of service. In this case, your nonprofit can access the personal fundraising pages for an annual fee. Two charges are incurred when donations are made: a 5 percent fee on the actual donation and another 2.5 percent credit card merchant fee. That means with a $50 donation, you still end up bringing in more than $45 to your nonprofit. There’s also an annual account fee of $500. Even with the extra fees, if you use the services wisely and put time into managing it, there’s no doubting the value of these services provided by FirstGiving:

• Creates on-demand reports showing the funds that are raised
• Collects donations and handles on-payment processing
• Provides unlimited support
• Manages online event registration

This unique solution helps supporters who are hesitant to fundraise in person.

Highlight your fundraisers’ pages on your organization’s main website, and provide prominent links directly to their personal sites. This way, you can easily offer prospective donors (visitors to your site) a specific, personalized way to give.

Because these personal fundraiser pages often contain personal information (including e-mail addresses), always get your volunteers’ permission to post links from your site.

Circulating donation links offline

One way to increase the value of any type of volunteer effort (personalized fundraising pages or any other method) is to distribute your information by way of other established networks that your volunteers belong to, such as these examples:

• Churches
• Credit unions or banks
• Employers
• Member-based organizations or clubs
• Professional associations

Although most organizations and almost all companies maintain no-solicitation policies, you can occasionally find loopholes. For example, employers tend to make exceptions if their employees are contributing to good causes. Similarly, if an employee or a spouse suffers from a health issue (such as diabetes or cancer), a company is often willing to promote the nonprofit organization associated with that person’s problem. Coworkers and peers are also more likely to donate to your cause when they’re supporting someone they know.

Here are a few ways to circulate news about your cause and increase visits (and donations) to your website:

• Create a newsletter. Write a brief article about your volunteer and how that person is helping your organization. Your article can describe anything from raising money for a bike-a-thon to heading up a clothing drive. Include a web address where people can learn more and donate. If you create an electronic newsletter, provide an active link to your site.
• Use the company’s internal communication sites. For example, some companies may have an intranet, which is a private Internet site for the employer that’s unavailable to the general public. Or, a company may use a wiki page, which is a website that allows collaboration and sharing of information among employees or company departments. In each case, employees access the shared site for news, general information, and critical updates. Provide a brief description (similar to a newsletter article) along with a button or link to your organization. You can then place the link in a prominent place on the shared site so that other employees or members can reach you and make donations.
• Get employees to like you on Facebook: Social media provides another way to reach out to employees. If you have a Facebook page for your organization, you can encourage one or two employees who like your page to ask their coworkers to do the same. (You can also place donation buttons directly on your Facebook page to encourage giving right from the social media platform.) Getting people to join you on Facebook also gives you the opportunity to communicate with them frequently and provides a more direct way to share your organization’s story. The same type of approach can be taken with other social media platforms (Snapchat and Instagram, for example) — anywhere you have prospective donors and can tell a good story through videos, pictures, or testimonials.
• Produce a member bulletin. This regular e-mail notification goes out to employees or members of an organization. Or you might produce a nonelectronic (printed) notice that’s circulated in pay stubs or at meetings. Again, spread your message along with your website address to encourage others to get involved or make donations.

Cross-promoting

Not all donation requests have to originate from your site. You can take advantage of cross-promotional marketing strategies, too. In these programs, you work with another organization in a way that benefits both of you.

One type of charitable giving program, administered by major credit card companies, plays off the popular reward programs offered as incentives to cardholders. If you have a credit card, you know that many companies allow you to accumulate reward points based on a percentage of the dollar amount you charge to your card. For example, every $100 you spend may earn you 10 reward points. You could then redeem your points for a gift; for example, 2,500 points might qualify you for a $25 gift card to your favorite spa. Several companies now allow you to trade points for a charitable contribution of a specific dollar amount. What an idea!

Unlike formal partnerships with card companies, some programs simply require you to enroll. The American Express donation program for card members is an example. When you’re ready to enroll, visit www.americanexpress.com/give. After you’re approved, you can place a button or an ad on your site with the American Express logo. Visitors who click the button go directly to the card company’s donation site to redeem reward points for your organization or to make donations by using the American Express card.

Before enrolling with the American Express donation site, you must be listed with GuideStar (see Chapter 2 of this minibook). You also need to have your employer identification number (EIN) handy to start the registration process.