Give Now: Getting Started with Online Fundraising Robert H. Lane

Give Now: Getting Started with
Online Fundraising
Robert H. Lane, Ph.D.
Lane Services, LLC
Your Speaker
Dr. Robert Lane
 Authorised iMIS Solution Providers
 Authorised iMIS Fundraising Professionals
 Extensive fundraising & direct mail experience – current treasurer of
an association foundation using iMIS
 2013 AiSP of the Year
 Work with fundraising organizations from small association
foundations to large direct mail charities with millions of donors
What We’ll Cover
• Best Practices
• Approaching Online Giving
• Hands On!
– Build a ‘Ways to Give’ area
Winner of 2013
Worst Charity Website Competition
Online Donation Killers
Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Group Report
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/non-profitwebsites-donations/
• Usability
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Poor design
Unclear content
Confusing terms
Missing Content
Social is a Secondary Consideration
Website Best Practices
• Make Your Site Donor Friendly
– Donate Now should be everywhere
– Allow guest donations – no login required
• Engaging Content
– Mission focused with opportunities to give
– Fresh content
– It’s OK to recycle content
• Mission Focused
Example: Lab Rescue
Give & Go
Make it quick & easy
You may even want to allow duplicate records
to be created
• Why? – make it fast
• If you have an emergency appeal, do
you want donors to be required to
create a login & password or do you
want the funds?
• This violates principles of data
integrity but raises more money – your
decision
Know Your Website
Know Your Website
Know Your Website
• What does this tell me?
• Adoptable Dog = #1 Visited Page
– That’s MY organization’s mission
• Ways to Give = #8 Visited Page
I need to incorporate giving into my
Labs Available for Adoption Page
My Approach
• Ways to Give – important!
– Test / refine / test / refine
• Home Page – important!
• Labs for Adoption – critical! – this is
changing!
• Shopping Cart – growing in
importance
The approach
Page
Set Up as
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Donate Now
Sponsor a Dog
Emergency Dog
Online Store
Community FR Page
Give and Go
Give and Go
Goes to Cart – Upsell
Goes to Cart – Upsell
Goes to Cart – Upsell
Poll
• How Many of You Know Your Website
through the Eyes of Your Visitors?
Social Content
Social Content
• Oh Yes it Can!!!
– Lots of companies host Facebook challenges
• 2012 – Lab Rescue won $50K from Pepsi
• 2013 - $20,000 from two challenges
• We recruit ‘likes’ all year around so we have a strong
audience when we need it
– Can you raise money on Facebook?
• Popular theory is no – Facebook raises friends
• $4,000 for a dog in 2 days – Facebook posts only
• 38 Planned Gift intentions from one post
Social Content
• When I start working with a new
organization I ‘find them’ and watch
– See a post here and there (days / weeks
apart)
– Content is uninspiring
– No call to action
• If social is for friendraising…it doesn’t
make me want to be friends let alone
give
Social Content
• Neilsen Group Found:
– Social Content was a secondary consideration
– Social Content didn’t align with website
• Raise your hands if your organization posts:
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Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
YouTube
Gift Aid
Gift Aid Setup
Let’s look at a simple, out of the box site
Questions?