How Can Organizations Run a Successful Digital Fundraiser?

For schools, sports clubs, parent committees and community groups the majority of their donations are coming from online fundraising channels. The way in which any organization is able to achieve fundraising online through these channels can vary greatly and there are many factors to consider. The biggest factor involved in any of the fundraising channels online is the way the ask is set up for the campaign and the amount of administrative work that the campaign generates after the donation has been made for the campaign.

Build the campaign around one target and one deadline

An open-ended appeal to a school’s general fund will always underperform a targeted campaign for a specific goal with a closing date. The reason is that an open-ended appeal to a school’s general fund gives supporters no reason to act today rather than next month. By specifying the goal of your campaign in the appeal for a specific goal with a closing date you create a sense of urgency that the supporter cannot ignore.

A person can decide to support a campaign online in seconds and therefore it is very important to make it easy for supporters to give. When trying to raise $8,000 to buy instrument cases for a school for example it would be very powerful to show that the cases cost $200 each and that you need 40 of them.

Set suggested amounts deliberately

The initial ask for funds in your campaign should include anchoring giving with preset donation buttons. This should allow for 3-4 tiers of giving to allow for the greatest amount of people to be able to give at the right level for them. The second option (i.e. ‘default’) for giving should be slightly above the average amount of previous giving to maximize giving at this level. The open field for additional giving should not be the main focus of your campaign as this creates a lot of work for the donor and in the end will result in lower amounts of giving.

Remove friction from the payment step

As has been described in prior sections of this research, the biggest loss of all for the abandonment of online donations is the work of the additional fields, account requirements, redirects, etc. Needed for the online donation to process successfully. This loss is greatest of all on the mobile platform.

• Accept digital wallets alongside card payments, since they eliminate manual card entry entirely.
• Keep the form to one screen with no mandatory account registration.
• Make the recurring giving option visible but not preselected, so monthly support is easy to choose and never feels like a trap.
• Confirm the gift instantly on screen and by email, with the receipt attached rather than promised later.
• Test the full flow on a phone using real payment credentials before launch, not a sandbox.

Match the tool to the way money will actually arrive

Choose an online fundraising platform for your school, sports club, parent committee or community group that allows supporters to give in the methods of online giving that they prefer. Online fundraising platforms differ from each other in the online methods for giving online that are supported by each.

Plan the back office before you plan the promotion

There are hidden costs to the person(s) reconciling transactions and recording data against your campaign(s) for online fundraising efforts. These will show up as a series of minus payments (i.e. Refunds/chargebacks) that are deducted from the gross figure reported by the fundraising platform.

Set up someone to reconcile all online donations (including all fees) on a regular basis (decide on a frequency basis). Set up an audit trail for these reconciliations. Determine if the online donation system is able to export all transaction information from the system. Determine if the online donation system is able to export in a format that can be imported into your accounting software. Determine if the online donation system automatically issues out compliant tax receipts for all online donations. Determine if all refunds and chargebacks are listed clearly and not reported as unexplained adjustments.

Keep supporter data clean from the start

Recording consent, contact details and purpose for all online donations is also essential. Duplicate supporter records are almost as bad as supporter records without an email address. They serve no purpose and will soon be forgotten in your efforts to ask for support from the same people again.

Judge results on the numbers that predict the next campaign

Monitoring online fundraising efforts. We monitor the four numbers above on a simple scoreboard for every campaign, recording the numbers for future reference will soon tell you if a strategy is working or not and whether or not you are repeating a sensible approach to online fundraising or conducting a series of separate ‘one-off’ online fundraising appeals.

1. Conversion rate from donation page visit to completed gift, which isolates form and payment friction.
2. Average gift by traffic source, which shows which channels bring committed supporters rather than passive traffic.
3. Share of donors who had given before, a direct read on whether your stewardship is working.
4. Cost per dollar raised, including fees and staff or volunteer hours, not fees alone.

By recording these four numbers for future campaigns, you’ll soon be able to tell if your strategy of online fundraising is actually working. Moreover, you’ll soon be able to tell if, instead of conducting sensible online fundraising, you’re conducting yet another series of separate ‘one-off’ online fundraising appeals, each requiring as much effort to set up as the last. The first of these methods is the only method that actually results in increasing amounts of money being raised with each subsequent campaign requiring less and less effort.