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ShareVision Blog

Conversations on technology for community service providers

Take Your Fund Raising Sheep by the Horns

Sheep

Holy holiday hangover it’s 2015!

Which seems like a good time to ask how well did your agency do with donations last year? As you wrote out tax receipts and tallied up your Christmas donation totals, did you notice if your agencies donations were up or down? Did you meet your budget goals and or fundraising objectives? Did you wonder if the number of donations received online had increased?

According to the website Fundraising 123, donating online is an upward trend that can be expected to continue in that direction.

“In 2008, non-profits got about 10% of their donations online, according to a survey by Target Analytics. Given the high growth rate for Internet donations, we estimate that they'll constitute the majority of donations by 2020.

2020 is only five New Years away! Will your agency be ready?

While you are thinking about how you can tune up your agency’s donation page, here is some advice on how to increase your chances that someone is going to click on the donate button.


Say Thanks!

Yes the old adage still applies. Believe it or not many agencies still fail to acknowledge their donors. Both big agencies and small can both be guilty of this oversight. (Not you of course.)

Keep your Friends

Focus on keeping your existing donors rather than focusing solely on attracting new ones. Maintaining long-term relationships usually pays off big in the end, both financially and in social capital.

Tell Stories

Talk about your donors (with their permission of course). Use social media and your supporters to help spread the word. Be funny, be wise, be exciting, all while promoting the value of your organization at the same time.

Partner Up

Partner with for profit organizations. In other words, let them do the work for you and feel great about themselves, while you collect the donations and give the receipts. According to John Haydon this is a one of the biggest under-utilized fund development activities by NGO’s.
http://www.johnhaydon.com/five-ways-increase-your-nonprofits-donations-2013/

The biggest advice online though seems to be – Make it EASY for people to use your online tools. According to this very interesting usability study by Jakob Neilson of the Nielsen Norman Group it is 7% harder to donate to a non profit than to spend money shopping online.

“Non-profits must clearly communicate their value proposition if they want to attract volunteers and online donations. Sadly, such communication is the sore point in the non-profit user experience”.
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/non-profit-websites-donations

For more great tips on how to maximize your donations read this informative article:
http://npengage.com/nonprofit-fundraising/boost-donor-acquisition-online-fundraising/

New Years has come and gone, in a few days we will all stop saying it to each other without realizing it. February will then welcome in the Year of the RAM so why not grab the fund raising sheep by the horns and tweak your donation pitch. You have only four more years and 11 months until you are facing 100% of donations coming to you online. Be there.

Topics: non-profit