Much has been written here in our blog and elsewhere about this burning question.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has framed this same question obliquely in their recent posting about this matter. Here’s our blog from 2 weeks back with the data.
Yes, the online channel is the only one growing in the nonprofit world and yes, this means mostly via a PC…..for now. The questions posed here can both have a “YES” as answers but as the Chronicle points out, most nonprofits get a “YES” a donor “CAN” give but “NO” creeps in as the answer to “WILL” they give.
In other terms, yes people can donate online via your website using their PC but will they? Do you make it too hard to find out where the path to give begins and then are there too many pages and fields to complete? Most importantly, going back to our last blog, is there way too much friction in your online giving process.
When you look at your PC site on a mobile phone ask yourself “Would I do this? I know I can do this if I commit to it but do I really want to do this on my phone?” PC giving pages on mobile phones are slow to load, hard to navigate and there’s way to much pinching and swiping to figure out where to begin to give. Bottom line; this practice costs you donations.
This is where we come in. As I have always shared here in our blog, easy, secure and fast giving on any screen (mobile, tablet, PC) was the very first thing we went after and we did so precisely because our research showed that giving online has way too much friction in the process. And, the donor path varies so much.
On this last point I will go back to Amazon and point out that not only can you find pretty much anything you want but the purchase path is always the same. This encourages repeat purchases. How often do you think a donor asks themselves if they want to go through your online giving process again? Could this be part of what’s driving low repeat giving?
Donors would value the a known, and uniform way to give to any nonprofit instead of the path being pretty much unique to each nonprofit in the US. That’s hundreds of thousands of paths if not millions. Ugh.
Here’s the keys to getting to “they WILL donate to us online”:
-Don’t hide the “DONATE” button. Say this with me “Giving is not searching.”
-Remove all the friction from the giving process. Take out steps and needless fields.
-Add mobile-optimized giving for all your digital channels. Be real-they’re mobile channels anyways. Why use a PC experience on a mobile phone? Research suggests you’re losing donations. (Again, can is turned into won’t.)
-Make repeat giving as easy as buying a song online by letting donors save their info securely for repeat impulse gifts in seconds on any screen-tablet, PC or phone.
In summary, I must remind you that by a 2 to 1 margin people visit you online to give not to stay connected with you. With this being the case, you need a giving process for your donors that you can phrase as “THEY CAN, THEY WILL and thankfully THEY DO! give to us online on any screen!”
Dale Knoop is part of a great team working to make RAZ Mobile a great platform for any cause engaged in fundraising. Any cause can create an content-rich mobile presence, share it through text messages, social media, QR codes, advertising and more and best of all-quickly and securely process donations from motivated supporters. Dale holds multiple patents and applications for patent in the mobile space including advertising, content optimization, geo-targeting, negative QOS and a mnemonic device QR code alternative.
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