5 great donation pages of top nonprofit organizations
We’ve compiled 9 great examples from charities and nonprofit organizations that have created good websites and online donation forms to improve their online fundraising results:
World vision
Highlights
1. They present the donations as gifts of specific products to the beneficiaries (goats, chickens, ducks, emergency kits…) and other less tangible gifts (protection for children, hope for sexually exploited girls…).
2. They invite people to order gift catalogs and also give copies to their friends. It can be much more effective than simply asking them to invite their friends to make a donation.
Obama Foundation
Donation form of the Obama Foundation
Highlights
1. They emphasize the recurring donation option more than the one-off donation. In fact, it’s not presented as a donation, but rather as “Join us as a member.” They also give gifts as a thank you for recurring donations.
2. They use the same system as online stores (before the donation form itself, you see a “shopping” cart with details of what you are donating and the gifts you will receive).
3. Before sending you to the final page of the donation process, they invite you to buy other merchandising products with the organization’s logo. This tactic is known as “cross-selling” and is used successfully in many online stores (they promote related products before completing the order to increase the total value of the purchase), but very few nonprofits use this tactic.
Alliance for Youth Action
Donation page of Alliance for Youth Action
Highlights
1. The design of the donation page fits in very well with the rest of the website (same colors, style, fonts…), which makes the donation experience more fluid and natural.
2. They highlight the recurring donation with a good phrase: “Your monthly support prepares us for every challenge and lets us plan for the future.”
3. They show a video before the donation form, which allows the potential donor to understand better the work of the organization.
Unicef
Donation form of UNICEF Australia
Highlights
1. They start with a powerful photo and an eye-catching donate button, but they also show a lot of information after that (it’s not a page with only the donation form, as many nonprofits do)
2. They invite you to become a “Global Parent” instead of the traditional figure used by many nonprofits of sponsoring a specific child. They also show which initiatives your donation will help.
3. They tell you what exactly you are going to get for your recurring donation (being part of the community, exclusive tickets to events and webinars, regular updates and an annual tax statement).
4. They show a real example of what they achieve thanks to donations. It includes figures from the project in general, as well as a photo and name of one of the girls who benefited from their programs.
5. They show global statistics of what they achieved last year, with icons to make it more visually appealing.
6. The first step of the donation form is fairly straightforward and highlights a lot that donating monthly is best for the cause. They also display symbols to highlight that it is safe to donate online, tax information (including a link to calculate tax deductions), and the phone number to donate over the phone .
7. They show at the end a section of frequently asked questions, which can help them get more donations and at the same time reduce the costs/time involved in manually answering frequently repeated questions.
Global Genes
Highlights
1. Before showing the donation form, they show several real cases of people who have benefited from the organization’s initiatives, including names, information, photos and even a video of these cases. In this way, they “put a face” on the problem they are trying to solve and the potential donor sees in a more tangible way the impact their donation will have.
2. They emphasize that for the potential donor it may be only a small donation and 5 minutes of their time, but that translates into hope for millions of people.
3. The donation form is not particularly polished, but it is noteworthy that they emphasize that you can also donate by SMS and through partnership programs.
It is interesting to offer other options, especially if you see that the online donation form has a low conversion rate (many users arrive at the donation page, but few end up donating).
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If you want to see more examples of great donation pages, check this collection.
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