^^My mom, Judy, and sister, Ellie, at a fundraising event for The Seasons Performance Hall, where my mother is the volunteer coordinator and Ellie is the director of operations. 

Well, I meant to post this in time for Mother’s Day, but as with everything this month, I’m running a couple of days behind.  Recently, I asked my mother if she had any insight on volunteer management she could share with me, as I was planning an upcoming post on the topic.  Though my mom, Judy, is amazingly good at dispensing advice (wanted or, ahem, not) on all subjects, she is uniquely qualified to advise on the proper care and feeding of your organization’s volunteers.   My mom has been a volunteer manager in many capacities: professional volunteer coordinator for my elementary school, as a school librarian responsible for the wrangling of event and daily volunteers, and, for the past four years, the volunteer manager for The Seasons Performance Hall, a non-profit event and music venue in Yakima, Washington.  The Seasons has substantial volunteer staffing needs, with each performance (multiple shows per month, plus a week long festival once a year with back-to-back programming and educational events) requiring a hardy team of volunteer ushers, food servers, merchandise sellers and ticket-takers.  My mother coordinates the volunteer staffing for the Seasons and is nearly always doing something to thank them- making cookies, sending hand-written cards, planning a fun thank-you event just for them, etc.  Having worked many an evening as a Seasons volunteer (every time I visit my family, in fact), I can say from personal experience that she gives very thorough direction and has a warm, enviable relationship with her volunteer base that many non-profits would love to emulate.  Her volunteer advice was so good and thorough that I’m presenting it below without further comment or even very much editing:

Top 6 Non-Profit Volunteer Management Tips 

Am I happy with my current donation processor?

‘Happy’ is actually a poor choice of word here; you can be  happy with your donation processing provider but still have outgrown them.  You can be happy with the customer service you get from your provider and be unhappy with the technical features they offer.  ’Happy’ also doesn’t mean ‘affordable’ (though of course it’s a factor)- if you feel ‘happy’ with PayPal because it’s inexpensive, consider the number of lost donations caused by having a user-alienating, outdated payment collection system.  Having a professional-looking payment page(s) goes a long way toward not only making donors more comfortable giving to your organization online, but letting them know that you see your website as a crucial instrument in your fundraising toolkit.  Having a donation page that’s integrated seamlessly (or close to it!) in your site lets your donors know that your website as a whole is a polished and highly functional arm of your fundraising efforts.  In my opinion, having a service like PayPal or Just Give- both of which have processes that are completely branded to the company, not your organization, and which make donors go through multiple steps before even arriving at the payment form- lets donors know that fundraising just isn’t a priority on your website and thus, for your organization.

How much do I want to spend?

This question really isn’t just about the monthly cost of service; it’s about the administrative time that goes along with any donation collection service.  There can be lots of costs associated with online payment processing, most of which I’ve broken down below:

Set-Up Fee: this fee is variable, but is usually a one-time fee to get your organization set up with a particular service or software.  Most standard services have some type of set-up fee

Transaction Fees: typically, these fees are under 50¢ and are charged at the same rate for transactions of any amount.  Also, because of changing debit card regulations, there will shortly be specific transaction fees associated with debit or pre-paid card processing (with our banking partner, it’s coming up in April, but may already be implemented with some service providers).

Discount Rate:  Definitely not an actual discount.  The discount rate refers to the percentage of your payments retained by your processing provider.

Gateway Fee: If you have a Merchant Account,  you likely need to also purchase the use of an online payment gateway or virtual terminal.  These fees are typically monthly and are variable from company to company.

PCI-Compliance Fees:  Because the Payment Card Industry has stringent and extremely extensive security requirements (rightfully so), if you have a merchant account from a provider, you may be subject to monthly or yearly compliance fees, which go toward your provider or banking entities PCI-compliance requirements.

Variable Rate Structure Fees:  This isn’t really an additional fee, but I thought it bears some explanation, as our service is structured this way.  All transactions are not created equal in the eyes of the credit card companies and banking entities- different card types cost different amounts to process.  Some providers simply start with a higher transaction fee, monthly fee, or discount rate to cover the variable cost in processing different types of transactions and some will set different rates for different types of transactions.  For instance, we charge 3% on standard transactions and 4.8% on ‘non-qualified’ transactions- those that carry a greater cost to us and our banking partner, typically transactions made with international cards or corporate rewards cards.  Again, sometimes the transaction processing cost spectrum is rolled into one flat rate or compensated for with higher monthly fees, but many providers of individual merchant accounts, like us, set different discount rates for different types of transactions.

Annual or Monthly Fees:  Many providers charge monthly or yearly fees.  Monthly fees are much more common for mid-range service providers like us and Network for Good.

You can also find, in a very handy chart format, a breakdown of most major online donation processors here.  It’s important to consider all the associated costs and make sure you understand your service provider’s rate structure before signing up.

Who will be managing the accounting and reconciliation of donations and donor info?

Accountant, development or  membership director, intern- whoever will be doing the lions share of account reconciliation and donor acknowledgement, make sure to incorporate their feedback in your organization’s decision to select a service provider, if they’re not the one managing the process.

How much information on donors do I need to collect?

Some providers have a database or donor info management tool that comes with their service- our service, for instance, offers one-click Excel spreadsheets and extensive options for donor info collection, but we don’t offer additional database options at this time.  If you have complex donor information management needs that are being met by outside database or CRM software, be sure to ask your prospective service provider about options and if they integrate with your software of choice.  If they don’t have an official integration, it doesn’t need to be a dealbreaker, but be sure you have some sort of workable option.

Is it important that my organization’s name appears on my donor’s card statements?

This may sound like a trivial question, but it’s another one that implicitly addresses donor comfort level and preference.  Are your donors going to be okay with seeing another company’s name on their statements?  Will they be reassured seeing the name of a company like PayPal or Network for Good, rather than the name of your organization- or confused and put off?  Typically, with ‘one-pot’ donation processors like the aforementioned, your donors will see the company name on their bank statements and with an individual merchant account, they’ll see the name and phone number of your organization.

Who are my sustaining donors?  What type of system would they be most comfortable using?  What type of system might encourage them to donate more or with greater frequency?

You know your donors best, so think hard about them while you’re choosing a provider.  Starting with the Perfect Support Worksheet is a great place to start putting yourself in your ideal donor’s shoes.  Do some serious brainstorming about what works with your current online fundraising platform and what doesn’t.  If you’re committing to making your website an effective fundraising tool, be sure you aim for the most user-friendly and intuitive system you can get at your price point.

Will most of our donations be coming from fundraising events, membership or standard individual donations?

Many of our clients do not raise the bulk of their donated funds through their primary donation page- their fundraising revenue comes from educational programs, fundraising events, or memberships.  If you want your donation processing service to support multi-pronged fundraising efforts, be sure that your service provider  can do so at the price point you’re expecting.

Do I need my donation processing service to integrate with my database software?

I covered this briefly earlier, but it bears it’s own mention: some services integrate automatically with various database software, like SalesForce, Raisers Edge and Salsa.  Some do not.  If this is a must-have, be sure you speak with the development staff to confirm in advance of signing up.  Many companies that don’t integrate with particular database or management software do offer suitable workarounds.

Do I need my donation processing service to replace my database software?

If you’re looking at services at a mid-range price-poin, this is generally an unrealistic expectation, but I’m sure there are some that do.

Will I need multiple fundraising pages?

Most of our clients run between 3 and 7 fundraising pages on their sites, with extras put up for events, campaigns and other fundraising drives.  Will you want to combine multiple fundraising tactics on one page or run a variety of pages that offer different options for donors to contribute to your organization?  A strong suggestion, which I’ve made many times before: do not try to cram everything under the sun into your donation page- your donors will thank you for an easy process and you’ll see a greater volume of donations if you don’t offer a confusing array of options.  Segment your fundraising efforts thoughtfully and mindfully.  That said, if you’re really only needing one general donation page or your organization doesn’t have extensive multi-channel needs, your search for a service provider will look a lot different than an organization searching for a service provider that can cover their membership, event, program and donation processing needs.

Are there specific functionalities I need?

Here’s where you should be sure to get on the same page with the staff that will be doing your donation processing and management.  If you have a development director, a fundraising team, and an accountant, I’d suggest meeting with all of them and coming to a consensus about which functionalities you’ll need to fundraise effectively.  Dealbreaker functionalities sometimes include: automated recurring payments, honorarium gifts, non-payment contact forms, registration systems for events, store functionality and many more.  Once you’ve decided on all the absolutely critical fundraising functionalities, you’ll know you can eliminate the service providers that don’t offer them.

What are my expectations of customer service?

What type of response time is acceptable to you?  Do you need 24-hour free and available support?  Do you want a dedicated rep or are you happy with calling the company and speaking with whoever picks up the phone?  Most company reps should be able to answer your questions about what the customer service process looks like- be sure to be specific about what your needs might be and be sure to listen when they answer!  Don’t sign up for a service who says you can be online in two weeks and expect your to be up and running in three days.  In fact, many other expectations-related factors from our article on How To Be A Good Web Design Client apply here too.

Do I like their work?

This is really one of the most important questions to ask yourself and your staff when you’re deciding on a provider- do you like their work?  Be sure to thoroughly look over examples, so you can see how various functionalities- like the honorarium section, recurring payment options, and payment form- are formatted using your potential service providers system.

I think this covers all the bases I’d want to cover if I were in process of selecting a donation processor- the bottom line is that to know exactly what you’re looking for and understand exactly what you’ll get out of a particular service, you probably have to do some fairly extensive due diligence.  Hopefully, this can be a fun process, not a daunting one and will lead you to deeper knowledge and understanding of your organization’s fundraising trajectory.  How does your organization choose a service provider?

Happy Fundraising,

AJ

Learn More About DonationPay’s Service

Learn More About DonationPay’s Pricing

See Some Examples of Our Work

Get Started With DonationPay

2011 is history.  (image from Jalopnik)

Okay, so the holidays are over.  Officially.  You probably won’t be seeing the type of donation volume you had over November and December again until next year’s holiday, but that doesn’t mean you can’t turn your organization’s website into a lean, mean fundraising machine.  Give your organization a fresh start for 2012 with these simple tips for increasing your fundraising power in the new year:

1.) Mind Your Manners.

By this I mean, be sure you send a Thank You to everyone who donated this year.  I’ve discussed how best to do this at length in previous posts here, but it’s different for every organization.  Be sure you send out an acknowledgement to everyone who supported your organization this season (yes, it’s different than a donation receipt!); it’s just about the best and easiest way you can motivate your donors to contribute year round.

2.) And Your Metrics.

Hopefully, you’ll have lots of data from the holiday season this year, so you can see what worked and what didn’t.  Doing some social networking campaigns that didn’t pan out as lucratively as you’d planned?  Pull ‘em.  Donors getting hung up on one of the steps on your donation form?  Change it up.  Do a review to begin 2012 strong and start making changes to your donation page, your site’s funnel, and anything else that’s seems to be in any way impeding the online donation process.  If you haven’t been tracking your donors behavior on your website this year, put some energy into getting it set up immediately.  The results will be enlightening and provide invaluable information how to further optimize your site’s fundraising functionality.  Our service can easily integrate with your analytics program, so if you haven’t yet taken steps to collect measurable data (outside of dollars raised) about your donation page as it functions in concert with your site, do it now!

3.) Incentivize.

So, the idea is that your organization has been building, through a series of interactions (online and otherwise), a relationship with a donor base that believes in your organizational mission enough to put their donation dollars behind you.  But even your wonderful, generous, saintlike donors like free stuff (everyone does).  Figure out something awesome (and cost effective) to give away to your donors in a planned fundraising drive- if you’re a water-conservation group, give away eco-friendly water bottles in your summer fundraising push; it doesn’t need to be something big or valuable and ideally it will also act as a guerilla marketing tool for your organization.  Bumper stickers, mugs, bandanas, those crazy LiveStrong-style plastic bracelets, packets of flower seeds with your organization’s logo (I think these are an awesome giveaway item for environmentally-oriented organzations). . . all these options can be made fairly inexpensively and are a little added perk for donors, especially at non-peak times of year.

4.) Get Some Fresh Perspective

Have a meeting early in 2012 and put your head’s together- get everyone on board with the fundraising plan for the year.  You might find that folks from different departments can shed some light or bring new ideas to the table and even if not, this meeting is a good time to reiterate to everyone (yourself, too!) that online fundraising is an organizational priority.  Online fundraising doesn’t just take a good donation page and good marketing, it takes a dedicated, organized team that manages and enhances donor relationships and has a collective sense of excitement and dedication.  Have a post-holiday re-group session to increase your chances for year-round fundraising success.

5.) Think About Your Ideal Donor.

To borrow a concept from Maureen Carruthers (whose work I love!), you ‘perfect supporter’ is that ideal donor you’re writing and appealing to.  Figure out who he or she is- Maureen offers a fabulous worksheet on the topic and while this exercise may seem simplistic, it’s a perfect tool to help guide your marketing and fundraising asks, as well as a way to shift your perceptions of your donor base.

6.) Best Laid Plans. 

image from Design*Sponge

A lot of your fundraising success this year will come from careful planning and forethought; no getting around or out of it.  The beginning of the year is a crazy time for everyone (we’ve barely taken a breath here at DonationPay since, like, September!), but to get your head wrapped around your fundraising goals for the year, you’ll probably need to set aside some fairly substantial time to plan out your online fundraising appeals and programs and how they fit into the landscape of your year.  Know the exact days in your email calendar when your asks will go out, when your online presence should support specific fundraising events, when you’ll be doing ‘maintenance asks’ (a soft ask reminding your donors that your mission is ongoing), and most of all, who and how this will be executed.  It’s helpful to have an overall picture of your year’s fundraising arc and to consider the how your fundraising methodology will be perceived and received by your donor base, as a whole, not as individual asks.

Knowing how everything will go, to the last detail, is of course not going to be totally possible and much of the reason that everyone involved with the non-profit sector (yours truly included) are closet adrenaline junkies, is that the wild deviations and pivots and improvisations necessary to stay current, are actually kind of fun or at least invigorating.  So, even knowing that much of it may fly out the window at a moments notice, do yourself and your organization a favor and set up a comprehensive online fundraising workplan.  Even if it only ends up acting as the vaguest blueprint for how you’d like things to go, it will help, I promise.

6.) Get Help. Online.

I’ve been browsing the internet quite a bit these days, and lest you think I’m shirking my work duties to do some Ebay shopping, let me clarify: I’ve been surfing the web with purpose.  I’ve been impressed with the Biz Ladies posts at Design*Sponge lately (brief aside: I’ve been obsessed with D*S forever and most recently made an awesome version of this amazing herringbone-painted dresser for my house and I love it!)- they provide a lot of advice that’s not too lecture-y about planning, stress-management and how to integrate your creative life and goals into your day-to-day.  I’m trying to be better organized, better tempered and more connected to the community here in the Bay Area in 2012 and I’m reading everything I can about how other people go about doing what I want to do.  For fundraising advice, do the same: check out the blogs of organization’s you support or are impressed with, read all the expert advice you can find, and think of the web as a gigantic support group for your fundraising efforts.  Because, if you look in the right places, it kinda is.  Obviously, our readers are already on top of this (pat yourselves on the back, y’all), but try to freshen up your online reading list by seeking out some specific information about particular fundraising or organizational goals for the coming year.  My favorite news aggregators for non-profit info are AllTop and Mashable, and there are so many good blogs out there, so many good books. . . find time to do some productive web research about how to freshen up your fundraising approach in 2012 and it will pay off!

Got some good ideas to share?  How is your organization going to effectively fundraise in 2012?

-AJ

All photos taken from Chimp Haven’s website

The DonationPay office can be an emotional bunch and we have been known to get . . . worked up, over the awesome work our clients are doing.  We are moved, inspired and amazed at our clients great work, fortitude and brilliant fundraising strategies, every day.  That said, last month as we were setting up donation pages for a new client, suddenly all office work came to a screeching halt as one of our developers called us all over to experience a fantastic video on their site.  The organization is Chimp Haven and the video, no joke, moved me- and every member of our development team- to tears.  I’ve embedded it below, check it out at your own risk . . .

Aside from turning me into a blubbering mess (no easy feat), Chimp Haven is doing some truly incredible work. From their website:

Chimp Haven is The National Chimpanzee Sanctuary. We are an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide lifetime care for chimpanzees who have been retired from medical research, the entertainment industry, or no longer wanted as pets.

Chimp Haven provides:

• A permanent home where chimpanzees can live out their lives in large, naturalistic enclosures in complex social groups
• An organization managed by concerned individuals who specialize in chimpanzee care and management
• An inexpensive low-maintenance facility design
• Financial and organizational stability to provide lifelong care for each chimpanzee
• Opportunities for education and noninvasive behavioral studies

5 Things I Love About Chimp Haven’s Fundraising Pages

1.) Personality.  Both Chimp Haven DonationPay pages are carefully designed to be clean and user-friendly, but they are framed by photos, information and navigation that is bursting with the personality of the various animals that live in the 200-acre sanctuary.  There is a rotating ‘Meet The Chimps‘ portrait that showcases one of the chimps that live in the sanctuary.

2.)  Fundraising Integration.  The fundraising pages are very well enmeshed in the site aesthetic and functionality.  The Chimp Haven web designers have done a terrific job of making sure that every page has navigation that brings the donor directly to a page where they can either get more information about Chimp Haven (and it’s residents) or donate.  One of the biggest mistakes we see is organizations that have big ‘Donate!’ buttons all over their site that take the user to a page full of text, with another Donate button or link buried somewhere that takes the donor to the actual donation page- this is donor-alienating and simply too many steps to make an efficient donation process.  With Chimp Haven’s site, the fundraising component is built proudly and visibly into every page, letting donors know that the website is a preferred platform for giving.

3.) Specificity.  On both of Chimp Haven’s fundraising pages, they include specific numbers.  $75 will feed one chimpanzee for two weeks, $50 will provide essential medication for two chimps for one month- these numbers are specific, tangible and absolutely understandable to the donor.  They’re not spending time running down the various types of medications the chimps might need to take or exactly what their diet is comprised of (though that info is available and well laid-out in other areas of their site), but they’re giving enough detail to give the donor a solid idea of where their dollars will go.  The Chimp Haven ‘Best Friends’ page also wisely offers the option for donors to sponsor individual chimps, letting the donor feel personally connected to the health and well-being of one animal.

4.) Options for Giving.  I’ve already mentioned here how impressed I am by Chimp Haven’s carefully planned online fundraising strategy but they also present other opportunities for contribution.  The Chimpanzee Wish List, options for volunteering, a terrific store and information about corporate sponsorship- all these options give potential donors an idea of the full scope of ways to support Chimp Haven.  I personally most love the Wishlist because it gives, in and of itself, an idea of what the chimp’s lives are like and what they enjoy.  I’ll be putting together a care package of rubber boots, dog toys, nuts (not peanuts!), fleece blankets and the like as soon as the holidays are over to send to the sanctuary residents.

6.) The Chimps!  The greatest fundraising tool Chimp Haven has are it’s many colorful characters- the site and fundraising pages are full of information about the individual personalities, whims, and life stories of the chimpanzees and they are, every one, fascinating.  The comprehensive information, photos, and other media on the site is incredibly enriching, not distracting for site users, and really makes the website seem to be a vibrant part of the larger organization.  Making a website and fundraising pages that align with and share the stories of Jimoh, Midget, Queenie, Tracy and the rest is quite a feat indeed.

Chimp Haven is an amazing organization, with a dedicated staff, great sustaining donors and a mission that blows my mind- we’ve really enjoyed working with them so far and we look forward to helping them grow their already-great online fundraising presence.  Consider supporting Chimp Haven this holiday!  Also, for anyone interested in this organization or in chimpanzees in general, Chimp Haven will be having several open-house type visitor days over the course of the year, where they let the public check out the grounds and residents of their sanctuary- if we lived closer, we’d plan a full-office field trip to Chimp Haven to meet the amazing animals I feel I already know, from Chimp Haven’s dynamite website.  Keep up the great work, you guys!

-AJ

Support Chimp Haven

Learn More About Chimp Haven

Sponsor a Chimp

As I was reading the industry news on AllTop today, I came across an article from November that I’d apparently missed.  From Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog (which, if I’ve never mentioned it before, I love and read anytime I get a spare minute, which clearly at this time of year is once every six weeks), it’s an email from a development director at a large non-profit in New York to board members, asking them to place a call to a donor that had contributed $20 online.  A thank-you phone call.  The email is reprinted in full below, as it appears on Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog:

Dear Board Members,

I usually ask you to call and thank those who give donations of more than $500. Today, I’d like to ask someone to call and thank someone who gave $20 to the annual campaign.

Why?

Her name is Mary Smith and she sent a note with her donation letting us know that she is unemployed. She could have chosen not to give, but she didn’t. Her note means that she wishes she could give more. Giving when it is hard to give is an exceptionally meaningful act.

If you would like to call her, please let her know that $20 is an important gift. Last year, nearly $15,000 was contributed by hundreds of people who gave less than $100 each – many of these were $20 gifts. We need each of these people to make that choice to give every year. She is part of our community and it takes all of us together to make our work successful.

If you would like to call her, please let me know and I will share her number.

There are three reasons to make a call like this. First, everything I said above is true. A stretch gift is a deeply meaningful gift, whether a person is stretching to give $20 or $20,000.

Second, a healthy annual campaign is built on a broad foundation of small gifts. (yes, it’s the gift pyramid again!) We want all of our $20 donors to repeat their gifts each year and increase them over time, while many new $20 donors come into the campaign for the first time each year, filling in the bottom of the pyramid as other donors move up.

Third, Mary probably won’t always be unemployed. She has told us that she wishes to give more, and one day she will be in a position to give more. How much more depends on how she feels about us. Also, she is likely to make or revise her estate plans at some point in her life. The single most likely prospect for a planned gift is a long term donor who gave small or moderate gifts every year for more than ten years.

I spent a lot of time writing about one individual who has given us $20. It’s not a waste of time – but it also underscores why it’s so important to have a large team building and nurturing our many relationships, from our $20,000 donors all the way to Mary.

Thanks,

The development director’s commentary (again from Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog about the request described above was as follows:

The Chair responded right away, pleased to make the call. I look forward to hearing how it went.

I share this for a couple reasons. First, does anyone think I made a mistake? Why? Does anyone have a story like this to share? I’d love to hear it.

I have been with this organization for two years. When I first arrived, I was told there were issues with donor fatigue. One of the first things I did was put a comprehensive donor stewardship plan in place and jumpstart our cultivation efforts. My plan had a lot of deep personal cultivation with major donors, and more generic, less frequent outreach with those giving smaller donations. After two years I’ve seen a huge increase in giving in the major donor group, and not much movement anywhere else.

The reason for having a stewardship plan that has more personalized activity at the top of the donor pyramid is not actually that major donors are more important, it’s that there are fewer of them, so a deeper plan is more manageable.

OK.

Before I get started on my reaction to this post and to this matter in general, I want to say that I have the utmost respect for anyone trying something new, developing fresh ways to connect with donors, or doing their best to fix broken or tired methodologies around donor acquisition and cultivation.  It’s exciting to hear non-profit staff as excited, motivated, skilled and devoted to donor acknowledgement as Rene, the author of the email above, from Cinema Arts Centre in New York .  All that said, my strong feeling is that this email and this anecdote are far, far more exciting in theory than in practice.

Because I’ve heard this story before.

I worked as a waitress all through college and I’m quite familiar with this type of inspirational example. It’s the one where the manager tells you to treat every table as if it were they could award the joint a Michelin star.  It’s the one where they tell you that you need to treat the table spending $10 on two cups of clam chowder and the table of 8 ordering a $400 meal the exact same way.  Now, before anyone gets the idea that I was a mean waitress (god forbid and also, yes, I sure was) or that I’m turning up my nose at small donors, my point is not that there is inherently more value in either type of table or either type of donor.  The couple eating those cups of clam chowder likely wants one set of extra crackers, a water refill and to be left alone.  The group of 8 that want their colleague’s birthday dinner to be really special wants to be taken care of, attended to.  Yes, as a server, you make more money off the larger tables- but the smaller tables with less extensive needs give you a needed respite from the constant expenditure of social energy and often end up being an extremely enjoyable experience for all parties.   And Rene is absolutely right: proper and thorough acknowledgement of your smaller donors is what will eventually turn them into large donors.  Treating that table eating clam chowder with respect and attentiveness may bring them back with all their friends the next time a birthday rolls around.

The assumption that both tables-  both levels of financial contribution, both types of donors- want and need to be handled in the same way is in itself problematic. As is the execution.  If you spend the amount of energy required to effectively thank a major donor on small donors, those resources will eventually run out.   Cultivating great relationships with donors of all sizes is about being strategic in the expenditure of staff energy, resources, time and skills.  If there’s enough staff energy to put the same amount of time and resources into a $20 donor as a $20,000 one after you’ve completely developed, tested and proven your email acknowledgement system, then by all means go for it, but as said above:

‘The reason for having a stewardship plan that has more personalized activity at the top of the donor pyramid is not actually that major donors are more important, it’s that there are fewer of them, so a deeper plan is more manageable.’

My issue is not that the idea isn’t good- all donors do count and I particularly appreciated Rene’s description of ‘stretch gifts’ as extremely meaningful. Her point about sustaining donors (lifelong donors who contribute a small amount every year) is another very good one- building solid links with modest donors will help increase the chances that the relationship will be longterm and fruitful.  The objective of the anecdote about the Board member and the $20 donor is to show that organizations should make small donors feel just as appreciated as large donors- this is totally true, of course!  However, being aggressively pragmatic, I think the overall concept fails in the implementation- because this is not a sustainable or realistic way to show appreciation to small donors, it doesn’t hold up well as a confirmation of Rene’s point.   Yes, creating lasting relationships with donors of all financial levels is integral to organizational success.  Yes, acknowledgement is extremely important (in fact, I’ve written about it dozens of times on this blog and will likely continue to harp on it ad nauseum in future posts).  And, also yes, $20,000 can do more financially for your organization that $20.  There’s no getting around it; it’s not a commentary on the quality of the donor or the level of sacrifice necessary to generously contribute to an organization in hard times or good ones- it’s just a simple reality.  And whether the donor has contributed $20,000 or $20, the process of thanking them needs to be customized, appropriate and, above all, replicable.  Focusing personalized energy on the top of the donor pyramid is both befitting and necessary to strengthen and assure longevity in relationships with major contributors.

Well, then what about the small donors, you spoilsport?

For smaller donors, who typically outnumber those who are able to give $20,000, the thank you should be set up the same way: personal, genuine, fun and replicable.  If you’re lucky enough to have a couple hundred or thousand small donors, spend time crafting a thank-you email that will blow their socks off.  I mean, honestly, do I think it’s a terrible idea to have a board member with some spare time call a $20 donor. . . no, not exactly.  I just think the example feels more like an overly-simplified management exercise then a good example of how to be really appreciative of donors of all levels.

Small donors do not matter less than large ones- but they do have different needs.  

Organizations can do, operationally, a lot more with $20,000 than $20 and to me, calling a donor that gave $20 online to give them a profuse thank you from someone high up in the organization seems a little tone-deaf.  Like many people, I give about $25-$100 per year to several organizations and they are absolutely organizations that send appropriate, personalized and concise donor acknowledgement.  I appreciate being thanked, of course, like all donors do, but I think receiving a call from any of the organizations I contribute modest amounts to would seriously throw me for a loop.  I don’t need to be treated like my contribution is the same $50,000 or even $500 gift.  If I gave an organization 20 bucks and got a thank-you call from a board or staff member, I think my reaction would be more along the lines of  a boggled ‘Jesus Christ, get back to work!’ than . . .  warm and fuzzy.

Donors, large and small, are the lifeblood of any organization.  I’m in absolute agreement that all donors should be treated with respect and genuine gratitude, but the reality of most non-profit staffing situations doesn’t look like a management exercise and I think it’s really important to sort fantasy from reality, achievable and measurable from ideal and esoteric.  Having a board or staff member call a $20 donor is a conceptual ‘teaching moment’ about the value donor relationships; setting up a sophisticated, kick-ass, efficient system for donor acknowledgement of all different contribution levels is an achievable, scalable task, the benefits of which your organization can reap for years to come.  Instead of taking the long way around with an after-school special style message, I’d rather hear a rallying cry: ‘We’re going to make this years email thank you the best ever, and here’s how. . . . ‘

No, seriously, here’s how:

- set up a clockwork-reliable internal donor acknowledgement system before you send out your annual or holiday fundraising ask.  It’s likely your receipts are not going to serve as your actual acknowledgements- your receipts should go out automatically when the donor makes a contribution.  Set a system that kicks into effect after the initial payment has been completed.  Send your special acknowledgement email, changing only the name, in the next few days after your email and be sure to send a post holiday email that engages the donor in an ongoing relationship with your organization, maybe with news of what’s on the docket for you this year and some opportunities for non-monetary contribution to the cause.

-Make it special.  Add a link to a video of your staff singing a holiday carol or doing something fun and holiday facing, or just saying a heartfelt thank-you.  Add a staff photo or a picture that illustrates that work your donors gift helps make possible.  Set all these things to be as automatic and as minimally consuming of staff time as possible (i.e. record 1 or 2 awesome videos before the busy season, to be used in all online donor acknowledgement, have your designer or email service create a special template for acknowledgement etc.).

-Write thoughtful, concise copy for your acknowledgements.  Look at donations as a call-and-response type system- your acknowledgement is the second volley in the exchange of information, so it better be awesome if you expect the donor to come calling again.

-Get your whole staff involved.  Before any major fundraising push, have a brainstorming meeting about the message your organization wants to send to donors, as a whole.  Having a united front and incorporating input from everyone on staff will make the donation/acknowledgement system seem that much more personal and comprehensive.

That’s about it for today (exhausted yet?); I want to reiterate again how much respect I have for all practices related to donor acknowledgement and how much I believe all non-profits would be positively impacted by such a motivated and savvy ED as Rene.

Happy Fundraising!

-AJ

Support Elemental

-Keep available navigation minimal. Make sure that your users don’t get distracted by other navigation on your donation page. It’s a great idea to have links/navigation on the Thank You page (the page that your contributors will see after they’ve made a successful donation) but don’t distract potential contributors with bells and whistles.  If your organization runs lots of events or has a particularly content-rich website, be very sure that you don’t include full navigation on the donation page- it will likely be a distraction for your donors and will tacitly encourage them to explore other areas of your site instead of contributing.  Let them accomplish their business (by business, I mean financially supporting your organization), then direct them back to a full-nav page of your site to maintain engagement with your organization.

-Keep It Donor Friendly.  Simple, clean and usable: make sure every graphic and word of text on your donation page packs a big punch.  Your donation page is not the time to give a lengthy description of your mission statement- if they’re ready to contribute, they already know what you do.  Keep information about your organization’s mission brief and instead use your text to illustrate where your donors dollars will go, specifically, and, of course, to profusely thank them for their support.

-Make Your Suggested Amounts Count.  Many organizations include suggested amounts on their donation forms and it’s something we highly recommend.  It’s different for every organization and fundraising campaign, but using a very small amount as the example donation (i.e. just $5 will do x at our organization) is a great way to shoot yourself in the foot.  Unless it’s specifically necessary to your fundraising plan, start your suggested amount buttons at between 20 and 25 dollars.  Asking for 5 bucks here and there may work for Ira Glass, but it’s probably not going to yield a substantial enough result for organization that don’t have massive donor bases.

-Your Donate Button Is Not Your Fundraising Campaign.  Putting a ‘Donate Now!’ front and center on every page of your website is a given, but easy donation buttons do not a fundraising campaign make.  Track your Analytics (and if you don’t have Google Analytics or another program already installed, for the love of God, install it now!) numbers and figure out which page of your website is most effectively funneling donors to your donation page.  Know your potential donors likely pathways through your site to conversion (donation) like the back of your hand and make sure it’s a simple leap from every page of your site.  For organizations relying largely on individual donations, it’s extremely important to clarify to donors how and why they should donate.  Don’t just slap a button on there; make sure your donation links are well and prominently placed and provide a logical through-line for a donors visit to your site.  Be sure your website sets up a narrative-style process your donor can follow from start to finish; Home page to About Us page to Blog to Donation, know what I mean?

More fundraising season prep posts coming soon!  Happy Fundraising!

-AJ

The Pre-Holiday Donation Page Workout

Warm Up Your Index Page: Start on your website’s index/main page.  How easy is it to get to your donation form?  Can you immediately see the button that will take you to the page?  Are your Donate links and buttons prominently displayed?  If you have various fundraising campaigns running, are there links, front and center, that will take the user (who right now is you) directly to a page where you can easily complete whatever conversion your organization wants (whether this is signing up for an email list, making a donation, engaging with the blog content or following your organization on Twitter)?  Check the other pages of your site- is the Donation link prominent and easily found?  What you’re looking for in the warmup are any stumbling blocks to making a donation or engaging with your organization in the intended way. . . make sure you note any confusing areas or extra steps.  From the Donate links on your front page, you should be taken directly to the donation form- every page between a donate button and the actual donation form loses some donors.  The idea is to make the process as easy and painless as possible- don’t give your donors any excuse to ‘abandon the shopping cart.’

Exercise # 1: Donation Page Calisthenics

Donation page dress rehearsal- you’ve arrived on the donation page after a brief warm up and review of your site’s pages.  Now that you’re here, take a look around.  Is your page understandable and easy to use, even for the least tech savvy folks?  Make a test donation and see how it feels.  Is it easy to enter your billing information, to set up a recurring payment and maybe to enter an honorarium message if you’re donating in someone else’s honor?  Does the Thank-You page you land on after you’ve successfully completed a payment acknowledge your contribution and give you an option to return to the home site, sign up for a blog, or share new of your donation with friends through social media?  Make sure your donation experience is smooth, quick and makes you feel more deeply engaged with your organization.

Exercise #2: Strength Training For Your Story

What’s the story?  It’s tricky to bring a narrative to the forefront of the donation process, but the most successful donation pages do just this.  Is it apparent to your donors where their donation will go and how it will be spent?  Do they have an idea of what their donation will do?  It’s important to keep your donation form clean and user-friendly, but donors also like to see graphics and small text blocks describing what your organization does.  Limit long-winded explanations and favor anecdotal evidence of your donors positive effects within your mission.  Earthshare’s donation page does a fabulous job of this, as does A Home Within’s- both give great specific examples of what a donation will do and donors can easily visualize where their donation dollars will actually go when they make a donation.  Review your page- does it tell or suggest a story that donors are a part of?

Exercise #3: Some Social Media Cardio 

Are you linked in to social media? Once you’ve made a donation, can you easily Tweet about it or post to your Facebook page through links on the Thank You page or on your organization’s website?  Is it easy to join the conversation?  Is your donation page taking advantage of the, essentially, free marketing available through your donors social networks?  Make sure that once their donation is completed, your donor can immediately share a link to your donation page or a link to a content page on your site.

Exercise # 4: Stretch To Keep Your Fundraising Limber

What are the suggested donation amounts on your site and donation page?  Are you selling yourself short?  Donors respond well to suggested donation amounts, but will donate less if given the option.  Unless your fundraising plan is specifically based on lots of small donations, your suggested amounts should begin at $20 or over.  Of course, donors have the option of donating whatever amount they want, but does your site present a substantial enough example donation and with the example, provide a compelling enough reason for them to make that contribution?  Make sure your donation page offers inspiring reasons supporters should make a considerable donation to your organization.

 An Analytical Cool Down

Now’s the time for analysis: do you have your analytics program hooked up to your donation page?  Is it easy for your organization to track a donors path from site entry to donation completion?  Are you set up to do the kind of tracking necessary to make improvements to your site’s funnel and conversion rate?  Be sure you’re set up to collect as much data about your donors and your donation process as possible, because even if your fundraising is booming, there is always room for improvement.

Whew, that’s it for now!  Pat yourself on the back, take a look at your notes from the workout and get started improving your donation page.  We’ll be posting lots of helpful tips and tutorials in the next few months to help get prepared for the upcoming push.  The holidays are upon us, folks, let’s get your organization’s donation page tanned, rested and ready to bring in record fundraising dollars this season!

Happy fundraising,

AJ

The Convio white paper is very detailed and well-written, per usual, but the overall message is at once disappointing and liberating: there really is no magic bullet when it comes to donation page formatting.  There’s no set of rules that, if you follow them to the letter, will ensure online fundraising success.  There’s a major upside to this, though, because while there’s no perfect donation page that all organizations could use to really rake in the donation dollars, there’s also no wrong way to go about figuring out what works for your organization.  For our company, the most efficient method we’ve found to improve our site’s conversion rate is through direct user testing.  This does not have to be expensive, or massively time consuming, or unpleasant.  For us, it yielded some amazing results without breaking the bank or requiring the focused attention of our whole staff.  It was also fascinating.

We recently went through a redesign of our own website- new logo, new materials, pricing changes, new add campaign, etc.  While we performed hours of testing in-house and drove ourselves crazy over what to add, what to leave out, how much information is too much and how much is not enough, we couldn’t really come to a resting point on what we wanted the final site to present.  We’d all reviewed the site so many times that we started to not even be able to see it, you know what I mean?  We didn’t have a ton of staff time or financial resources to devote to strenuous testing, but we wanted to make sure that visitors to our site were converting into clients, or at least contacting us if they had further questions.  There are many user testing companies to consider- we chose UserTesting.com and I can’t tell you how highly we recommend this totally reasonably-priced, super-gosh-wow-awesome service.

Here’s how it works:

Once you choose how many users will be in your testing round, you’ll choose the targeted demographic (you can select your users by age, income bracket, gender etc.) that you’d like to test your site or you can leave it up to the company you’ve chosen and keep it completely random.  With the service we’ve used, we were able to then assign the testers three tasks to complete on our website.  For one of our rounds of testing, these were the three tasks we set for our users to complete:

-find and complete the online application.

-find and use the contact information to contact us for more info on the service.

-learn about our service and describe in detail what our company does.

For us, the testing was intended to gather information on how the ‘funnel’ works on our website (i.e. if folks can move smoothly and easily through our site to our application and if they feel like they have the information they need to come on board immediately).  For a non-profit, the list of testable tasks they could create might include some of these options:

-find and use the donation form on our site.

-find information and describe in detail what our organization does.

-describe in detail what a donation will be used for.

-sign up to subscribe to our blog, newsletter and Twitter feed.

-Share an interesting piece of content from the site via social media.

-find and describe a particular project our organization is working on.

-find and use any usual or signature features our organization’s site has.

Once you set tasks for your testers to complete, the fun begins!  Watching videos of random users trying to navigate your site is alternately exciting, painful, revelatory and, most importantly, extremely informative.  The videos provided by the company we used actually showed the testers mouse moving around our site, along with a running commentary from the tester.

Seeing actual users with no previous experience of our site or our company was shocking- many of the assumptions we’d made about our site’s user-friendliness, appeal and information architecture went instantly out the window.   Of course, you can’t take every piece of each testers opinion to heart; everyone has different personal taste and a different experience level with standard practices on the web.  However, it became apparent, pretty much immediately, that there were trends with every user that tested our site.

For us, it was that we weren’t offering enough information and not the right kind- it was making it difficult for site visitors to feel confident enough to sign up for our service.  The most significant change we made to the site was beginning to offer a live-chat feature so our staff could interact in real-time with users who were exploring the site and considering the sign up process.  In keeping with other trends we saw through all our tester videos, we also rearranged the information section of our website and made clear a few details about our service that we’d thought no-one would want to read the find print about (but which were making users feel confused about our service).

After implementing some website changes based on our user testing several months ago, we’ve already seen an enormous benefit to our company.  We are signing up about 35% more new clients per month, even though we’ve raised our pricing (slightly) and we’ve had nothing but positive feedback about the live-chat feature on our site (SnapEngage, check it out, y’all, seriously).  The reason I’m sharing the results of our user testing here on the blog is because it yielded a substantial result, with a minimal effort and financial investment on our part.  I think this type of testing will truly benefit non-profits looking to improve their online fundraising and it’s an option that’s scalable and affordable for organizations of all sizes and budgets.

The holiday season will be upon us in no time- though these have been some very tough years for the country, online giving is still growing yearly.  There are lots of ways to get your site in fighting form for the upcoming prime fundraising season, but I’d suggest considering a round of user testing before you send out your first call to action email to your donor base.  It’s an easy (and, weirdly, fun) way to give your donation process a tune-up and you might be surprised the results.

Happy Fundraising!

AJ

It Gets Better: Dan and Terry (some language is NSFW)

I’m sure everyone has heard by now about Tyler Clementi’s heartbreaking suicide (with an assist from his incredibly cruel, amoral roommates) and probably has heard about all the other recent suicides of bullied teenagers.  I’ll not launch into my personal feelings on this whole topic, as I’m worried I might flood my whole keyboard with tears.  I thought that our readers might, however, want some ideas as to where to direct their financial support for kids who are the victims of homophobia, violence, bullying, hate-speech or anything else in that abhorrent family.

Dan Savage, Seattle’s own sex-advice guru who has taken his whole operation national in the past 10 or 15 years, has created the It Gets Better Project, a series of video messages from normal individuals and varying types of minor to major celebrities who are sharing their experiences and assuring GLBT and questioning kids (and, really, any teenager who feels different or is targeted) that things do, in fact, get better.

One of my favorites is from the always-heartfelt Tim Gunn:

Anyhow, this great project is one of many resources available for anyone who feels like they’re stuck in an untenable situation.

Here are  more places to direct your support (as a volunteer, contributor, or just someone who helps spread the word):

The Trevor Project

Jeremiah Project 51

Washington State Youth Suicide Prevention Program