It's Morphin Time: Power Up Your Giving Season Success!

Your foundation is rock solid , donation page CRO dominated , and are growing concentrically . But now what?

It’s Morphin’ time! (If you’re a 90’s kid like me you 100% got that reference)

Alright, in all seriousness, it’s time to power up your online fundraising machine!

You’ve done the hard work now to make sure your giving experience is ?flawless??and your foundation is?strong ?????so now we get to take your digital fundraising to the next level - adding tools and features to your donation forms, giving pages, and website to turn your entire digital platform into a lean-mean-fundraising machine!

There are three categories to focus on when it comes to power ups: some that will make you feel like a fundraising wizard ????♂?, and others that will have you tap dancing to the bank ??!

There’s a mix of tool, strategies, and ideas for every fundraiser here - whether you’re publishing your first donation page or you’re topping off that beautiful surround sound campaign - grab one, or all, to level up your giving season performance.

1???Increase Conversions

The first category of power-ups is all about securing more gifts for your organization. Whether it’s boosting conversion rates on your already ???fire donation pages or creating new opportunities for potential donors to give to you, these are sure to help you make it rain ?? this fundraising season.

1. Multi-Step Donation Forms :Multi-Step Donation Forms have been proven time and again to increase every aspect of the online gift process. From conversion rate to gift amount, implementing a multi-stage donation form will make an immediate difference for you this fundraising season.
2. Abandoned Gift Retargeting:The not-so-glamourous fact we face in digital fundraising is that most people who see a donation form will not make a gift. BUT, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” with on and off-site abandoned gift retargeting.On-Site: When a donor starts the giving process on your donation page but, for whatever reason, leaves the giving page, you want to remind that person of their intent to give whenever and wherever they are on your website. Pro-Tip: Coupling on-site retargeting with contextual giving (look below ?? ????) you're set to see that hockey stick growth ??!Off-Site: use digital ads to remind the donors who visit a giving page but don't make a gift about the mission they were looking to support. Use these ads to connect with them wherever and whenever they're online to bring them back to your website to try and secure the gift they'd already started.
3. Contextual Giving:Also called “pop up donation forms,” contextual giving turns every page of your website into a donation page. It’s dang near impossible to guess what’s going to motivate every donor to give to your mission. Generosity motivations are unique as the people making the gift. So rather than trying to get everyone through the same progression to a giving page, you can turn every page on your site into a giving experience. This way you can convert any donor at any time motivated by anything on your site, from annual report to impact stories, by turning any piece of content on your website into a personalized fundraising appeal!PS - Don’t sleep on the benefits of reducing the number of clicks between motivation and donation form!

2???Increase Revenue

More conversions naturally means more revenue, but this next set of power ups will help you boost revenue with or without increasing total gifts to your organization (just imagine the potent impact they’ll make when combined with the power ups we’ve already talked about).

1. Automated Ask ArraysWe’ve already talked about the importance of dialing in your ask arrays in this series, but the #1 hack to improve both conversions and average gift is automated ask arrays. Automated ask arrays customize the ask amount on your giving for to each individual visitor, making the best possible ask based on their giving and engagement history. You’re going to increase conversions because donors feel like they’re being asked for a personally applicable amount and you’re going to see increased average gifts over time because the amount asked is specific to that exact donor!
2. Recurring Donor UpsellsWe all know that recurring gifts are the holy grail of fundraising. Reliable, consistent, funding for you to build mission momentum, what more could you ask for? How about even more recurring givers? Adding a recurring gift upsell to your standard donation flow is a proven way to significantly increase recurring revenue without harming one-time gifts in the process.Pro tip: Combining recurring gift upsell with a multi-step donation form compounds the growth of your recurring program!
3. Donors Cover FeesI know, even mentioning this probably causes the hair on the back of your neck to bristle, but hear me out. I’ve been a long-time supporter of the DCF as a must-have tool to increase your organization’s net digital revenue. I get it, though, asking for people to give more after they’ve already been generous doesn’t always feel the best. But think about it. When your donors buy concert tickets online ???? feesWhen your donors order dinner to be delivered ?????feesWhen your donors buy plane tickets ?????feesSo, really, the question isn’t “should I ask donors to cover fees?”, it’s really “who deserves to have fees covered more, our world-changing organization or that for-profit company that could totally absorb the cost but doesn’t have to so it chooses not to?”You already know what my answer is ??But don’t take it from me - here are some numbers to back it up* :???? Over $8 million given back to nonprofits worldwide from fees covered by donors ???? 90% adoption rate from donors choosing to cover some, or all, of the fees ???? 1.5% effective total payment costs (processing and platform fees) thanks to donors’ incremental generosity.
4. Asset-Based GivingYou’d have to be living under a rock to not have heard about the generosity crisis we’re facing. Individual giving is down and showing no signs of rebounding. But why? The simple answer? Most of your donor’s disposable income is being eroded due to inflation and cost of living. They simply have less cash to be generous with. So give them an option to be generous out of their wealth vs. their fixed income. Give them a chance to give asset-based gifts like stocks or crypto. You unlock so ?????much ?????value ?????when you give donors a chance to give from their assets vs. their pockets. The beauty of it all? You can make giving a stock gift as easy (sometimes even easier) as giving a credit card gift with integrations like DonateStock and Funraise !

3???Increase Retention

It’s no surprise to anyone in the nonprofitsphere that donor retention is a critical issue. But it doesn’t have to be—these fundraising power ups help you keep the donors you’ve worked so hard to start a relationship with!

1. Automated Recurring Gift RenewalWe just talked about the value of a recurring gift, but what happens when the credit card used for the recurring gift is set to expire? Updating expiring credit cards, traditionally a frustratingly manual process causing an unnecessary amount of recurring donor churn can now be automated and frictionless for both donors and fundraisers!
2. Automated Communication and Relationship ManagementNo matter how great you are at your job, and I’m willing to guess “rockstar” isn’t far off if you’ve made it this far, you can only do so much in a day. That’s where you get to amplify your impact through automation. From activity-based triggers to automated communications, the right technology helps you get even closer to the dream of 1:1 engagement at scale.

Clearly, there are TON of options when it comes to powering up your digital fundraising this giving season. But I promised that I wouldn’t only help you have your most successful fundraising season, I promised to help you do it while maintaining your sanity. So here’s my final fundraising hack for you to crush your fundraising season goals: get Funraise.

Every single power-up mentioned here is powered by the Funraise platform, and I’ve just scratched the surface. Funraise helps organizations raise more online, grow faster, all with less effort from essential fundraisers like you. Make the most of this #fundraisingseason this year by powering up your fundraising .

* Note: This data is a two-year look at Funraise-specific data. When you extrapolate this data across the entire industry the impact is quite staggering.