How to Get Donations Online: 7 Easy Steps + Best Practices

Online donations are a great way to maximize your nonprofit’s time and resources while having a larger impact. Support your mission-driven work and ensure financial stability in our modern tech-focused world.

Why It’s Important to Accept Online Donations

Accepting online donations is crucial for nonprofits and charitable organizations. Donations are a huge part of the fundraising strategy and moving digitally allows for:

• Convenience for donors: supporters can give from anywhere, at any time, using their preferred devices
• Broadened reach: reach an audience beyond your local community
• Streamlined process: simplify donating without checks or cash
• Insights into donor behavior: with data collection and analysis track trends, demographics and effectiveness
• Sustained giving: set up recurring donations to encourage long-term support and stable income

How to Collect Online Donations: 7 Easy Steps

Now that you know why it’s important to have online donations as a part of your organization’s fundraising strategy, we’ll dive into exactly how to collect them.

7 easy steps and you’ll see fundraising success ASAP. Ready? Let’s go!

Build Your Donation Page

You can’t accept donation payments without a donation page. Building out a designated page on your organization’s website is the first step and your virtual fundraising foundation.

A great donation page should:

• Share about your organization’s mission and goals
• Explain how the donations will be used and the impact
• Simple to use online donation form
• Be consistent with your brand, colors, fonts and imagery

Choose a Donation Platform

Online donation platforms make it easy to enhance the fundraising experience, both for your organization and donors. Common features include:

• Customizable donation forms
• Easy-to-build donation pages
• Automated, recurring donation features
• Multiple payment options
• Mobile-friendly interface
• Donor management and tracking
• Analytics and reporting capabilities
• Social media integration
• Fundraising campaigns

Integrate Your Payment Processor

Processing your donations securely and easily is key for a great user experience – plus it makes management easier! Your online donation tool might have its own payment processor, but chances are you’ll need a third party processor.  Popular choices are Paypal and Stripe.

Ensuring that your payment gateway is integrated with your donation platform will streamline processes making it easier for donors to contribute quickly, which can lead to higher conversion rates. Plus, you can offer multiple payment options like credit cards, debit cards, ACH and Apple Pay.

Set Up Automated Tax Receipts

Many donors need the receipts from their online transactions with your organization to easily file their donation tax forms. Most online payment processors will automatically send donation receipts to your supporters. Ensure you’ve properly set up the automation to save you time and reduce stress from manually doing so.

Use a Donor Database

A donor database will be your hub for everything about your donors. Manage your donor’s information like their contact details and giving history. This data allows you to segment your supporters, customize your messaging and ultimately enhance your fundraising efforts.

Promote Your Donation Page

What good is building out an optimized donation page if no one knows about it? It’s critical to market this page to your supporters. You can do this in a variety of ways.

Email Campaigns

Sending out dedicated fundraising email campaigns with a link to your new donation page will drive traffic. Be sure to include all those in your donor base – long-time donors, new supporters and even potential givers.

Social Media

Whether you use Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or even TikTok, increase your online presence with a donation appeal through social posts. Sharing impact stories in these posts and linking to your online donation page to boost engagement and funds.

Newsletter Placement

Your members and subscribers are likely your biggest supporters and regularly engage with your communications. Be sure to link your donation page in every email newsletter in a call-to- action to see the most impact.

Donation Button

Any time someone visits your organization’s page, there’s a chance they’ll want to support your mission. Having a donation button visible no matter the page they’re on is key for boosting traffic to your donation page. You may even have advanced donation forms that can be tied to the donate button, allowing individuals to donate without navigating to another page.

Read more: How to Write A Donation Letter (+ Examples & Template)

Monitor, Analyze and Adjust

The most effective fundraising campaigns are flexible and will pivot based on success. Monitor the donation page’s performance with data like:

• How many page visitors leave without donating
• Average gift size
• How many touches (e.g. emails, interaction with social media) before donors give

Best Practices for Increasing Online Donations

A successful digital fundraising strategy will implement some or all of these best practices. Improve your online donation process by:

A/B Testing

Just as it’s important to monitor your progress and pivot when needed, A/B testing can be a great strategy when it comes to your online fundraising efforts. Whether you’re testing email subject lines, your online form, CTAs or the text on your donation page, you can see what messaging resonates most with donors. Choose the version that results in the most donations.

Donor Recognition and Appreciation

Saying thank you to donors and recognizing their contributions is key for retaining donors. This helps you build donor relationships and boost engagement. Show your appreciation by:

• Donor acknowledgement in your newsletter
• Have a section on your website to highlight donors
• Sending thank you letters (either through email or handwritten)
• Highlight supporters impact on your social media channels

Seeing that others are appreciated for their donations can entice new donors. It’s a good idea to include a “donate too” CTA with a donation link.

Read more: Donor Acquisition Strategies to Boost Your Impact

Keep Supporters Updated

Donors give because they believe in your mission and want to support your efforts. Share impact stories of what your nonprofit or charitable organization does with donated funds. If you had a specific goal you were trying to reach, update your supporters on where you’re at or celebrate if you’ve reached it. You can do this via your org’s website, social media and emails.

Enable Recurring Donations

Recurring donations is one of the biggest benefits with online giving. On your donation form, include donation options to make their contribution monthly, quarterly or annually. This will allow your organization to have a stable source of funding and donors don’t have to waste time re-visiting your site to give.

Embrace Fundraising Campaigns

There are a couple different campaign strategies you can implement to market your fundraising goals, engage your supporters and increase your impact.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Peer-to-peer fundraising uses your current donor base to reach a wider audience and have them raise money on your behalf. P2P fundraising is low-cost and low-effort, a great campaign to utilize if you’re working on a tight budget with limited staff or volunteers. Classic examples could be the ice bucket challenge or walk-a-thons.

Donation Matching

Donation matching is another budget-friendly campaign idea to get more donations. Connect with businesses and double your fundraising efforts. Ask your donors to inquire with their employers about matching any donations to your organization.

Fundraising Thermometers

Having goals for your fundraising campaigns is what gives donors a sense of urgency and helps reach certain financial amounts quicker. To do this implement fundraising thermometers on your website, donation pages, social media and newsletters. Supporters will know how close you are to the goal and will be incentivized to make a donation or give more.

Text-to-Give

Almost everyone has a phone on them at all times, so why not use this to your advantage with a text-to-give fundraising campaign? This will allow you to accept donations via text messages, sometimes automatically charged to the supporter’s cell phone bill, making giving even easier for donors.

Raise More With WildApricot

With the right tools and strategies, online donations can be an effective way to drive fundraising results for your organization. Online giving can help harness your community of supporters to make an impact on an important cause and can help diversify your revenue streams.

Using a membership management tool with features that incorporate the best practices in this blog post can help you get a leg up. For example, with WildApricot you can build an optimized donation page, organize your contacts, create engaging emails and integrate donation requests into your event forms. Learn more here.

Getting online donations doesn’t have to feel like a daunting task. With these best practices in mind, you can be sure your organization is on the path to driving the donations it needs.