Online fundraising has a lot of moving parts. Whether you run a traditional nonprofit that’s been around for a century, or you’re just getting started, you’re probably planning on learning about or have adapted to virtual fundraising. But remember – you’re not the only one transitioning to digital fundraising platforms. Online donors are, too.
You can run a sophisticated omnichannel marketing campaign, but if you’ve failed to educate your donors, you won’t see a significant ROI. To be successful, you must make it easy for your online donors to give, and show them that their donations will be secure.
How Online Donors Can Donate
There are multiple ways your audience can donate online – you just have to show them how.
Start your live stream event or campaign with a video or picture tutorial of the ways someone can donate to your cause. The intent here is to show them how easy it is (and secure, but we’ll get to that later). Here are a few ways the online donors can give online:
“Donate” Buttons
Donating doesn’t get much easier than this. Show your audience that they can donate by clicking the “donate” button, which will direct them to a secure online page where they can enter their payment information. Once they have, be sure to have an automated message set up that emails or texts them a “thank you” for their donation and a copy of their receipt.
Recurring Donations
Reap the benefits of virtual events by also providing an option to make recurring contributions. In the age of subscription models and micropaying, you’ll find that donors are much more inclined to donate small amounts every month or quarter as opposed to lump sums.
Via Email or SMS
Email campaigns produce about 33% of total fundraising revenue. Getting donors to sign up to an event or page enables you to be able to email them to ask for donations, as well as how they can contribute.
SMS fundraising is growing in popularity. However, you have fewer characters to work with, so curate your messaging for maximum impact.
Ensuring Donor Security
Nearly 90% of organizations have experienced a security incident, and nearly half of them involved a loss of sensitive data. Security needs to be a main priority of yours. If you can’t protect your organization and your customer’s data, donors will be hesitant to give to your cause in the future.
We recommend collecting only the data that you need. Forms that require people to enter excess information puts you at risk of losing a potential donor. They also increase your donors’ risk and liability. Let your donors know that you’re not even temporarily storing their full credit card information. Doing so violates payment card industry regulations, and can result in significant fines and the loss of ability to process payment cards.
We also recommend that you:
- Use a payment gateway API
- Encrypt communications to and from your website
- Undergo regular system maintenance
Offering a disclaimer on your donation page that ensures all of this information should make your donors feel at ease – and better protect both them and yourself from security risks.
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