What To Say On Your Nonprofit Website’s Donate Page
You already know that you need more than a donate button on your nonprofit’s website to get people to open their pockets. But what compels people to actually give? If I had the answer to that question, I’d have told you a long time ago – and retired.
Research shows that people give for all kinds of reasons and most often, they’ve already decided to give when they come to your website’s donate page. But that doesn’t mean a person will just blindly donate when she gets there. And it certainly doesn’t help if your donate page doesn’t persuade visitors who stumble across your work.
These 6 tips help your website’s donation page do its job – and the rest is up to you (and your donor).
- Keep it short. Your online donors are not government or foundation officers. They don’t want a proposal. They want the gist. And they want you to…
- Tell a story: As in stir some emotion, make them feel moved or impassioned. You open their hearts and their wallets will follow. It’s hard to do so and keep the appeal short, but this is where tip number 3 comes in handy.
- Make it visual: I’ve been to countless websites where the home page has beautiful images, but when I click on the Donate button, all I see is reams of text. Use images that are beautiful and more importantly, illustrate tip 4.
- Reasons to give: Show (or, if you must, tell) people the impact of your work. This is one place where stats are valuable. And if you don’t have those, quotes work great too. Anything that can show donors that what you’re doing is making a difference. Follow that up with…
- Where the money goes: Tell people how their dollars are working. Be as specific as you can. There’s a reason why people are more compelled to fund tangible outcomes like money for a building – they can see where their money went. Your outcomes may not be as concrete, if you’re working on a cure for cancer, but someone is paying for all those lab coats. If it’s your donors, tell them.
- Make it easy: This is the most important piece of the puzzle in online giving – it’s why people give online rather than write checks: they want to save time and work. Help them do that with short forms and no more than two clicks. Please.
We’ll have more tips on “Getting Your Website Glammed Up For Online Giving” in a FREE webinar we’re hosting on Wednesday, September 25th at 1 pm EST.
If you’d like to join, sign up here with the subject “Webinar registration.” We’ll follow up with more details for you.
