Nonprofits depend on contributions from individuals, companies and foundations to maintain and bolster their operations. In the past, much of this fundraising was done in person, at meetings or community events. Now, as virtual events prove to be a more profitable form of fundraising, and as online giving increases year over year, digital fundraising is raising its profile.
Digital fundraising isn’t simply being able to accept online donations through a website, as most nonprofits are now able to do. If nonprofits want to increase the frequency and amount of the donations they receive, they must begin advancing their digital fundraising efforts.
Understanding Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits
Through websites, social media and other platforms, digital fundraising provides the opportunity for nonprofits to cast a wider net beyond their local areas to attract, engage with and build communities of supporters worldwide — including the 31 percent of worldwide donors who donate to organizations outside their own countries.
But just because digital fundraising provides this opportunity doesn’t mean every nonprofit is capitalizing on it. All nonprofits can certainly take steps toward doing so.
Whether the aim is to increase the number of total donations, the average dollar amount of each donation or the contributions received from a specific demographic, there’s no shortage of digital fundraising solutions that nonprofits can take advantage of.
Digital Fundraising Solutions for Nonprofits
Nonprofit IT leaders can help bolster fundraising by incorporating some of the following core solutions:
- Offer a variety of seamless and fast payment options. Even the most interested potential donors are less likely to contribute to a cause if the online donation process is inconvenient. Having payment options such as PayPal, Venmo and direct deposit versus more traditional credit cards can be good for both the donor and the nonprofit.
For some organizations, average one-time gifts through direct deposit can be twice as large as through credit cards, and average recurring gifts can be 29 percent higher.
- Offer a monthly giving program. Roughly 45 percent of donors have enrolled in some form of monthly giving program. If a nonprofit isn’t set up for recurring, monthly giving, it could be leaving a lot of contributions on the table.
LEARN MORE: Discover ways to reach new donors, especially major donors.
- Optimize the website to be mobile- and tablet-friendly. Just as a seamless payment option helps potential donors complete their contributions, a mobile- and tablet-friendly website helps them stay longer to learn more about the cause and eventually go to the payment form.
With 50 percent of all traffic to nonprofit websites coming from mobile devices and an additional 6 percent coming from tablets, a mobile-optimized website is a must.
- Automate giving reminders. Whether it’s an automated email to one-time donors or an automated text inviting them to sign up for your monthly giving program, automated giving reminders can go a long way.
- Remind donors to check whether their employer offers a matching gift program: Roughly $2 billion to $3 billion is donated through matching gift programs annually. That’s a lot, yet it’s still far less than the estimated $4 billion to $10 billion in matching gift funds that go unclaimed each year.
Reminding donors to check whether their employer matches gifts can help bridge this gap. It’s important to note that while more than 26 million people work for companies with matching gift programs, over 78 percent are unaware that their company offers it.
- Implement matching gift auto-submissions: Eighty-four percent of people are more likely to donate if a match is offered, and 1 in 3 donors say they’d make a larger contribution if a match applied to their donation, so it’s in a nonprofit’s best interest to help potential donors determine whether or not their employers offer gift matching.
Nonprofits can also implement matching gift auto-submission functionality, such as Double the Donation’s 360MatchPro
NEXT UP: Find out how overcome challenges and bolster your fundraising efforts.
How Digital Fundraising Helps Nonprofits Serve Their Communities
Effective digital fundraising helps nonprofits significantly increase their power to serve their communities. These funds also empower nonprofits to better compensate current staff and hire new personnel, as well as to upgrade equipment to potentially scale their services. But digital fundraising doesn’t just help increase the money available to nonprofits.
By helping cultivate a community of supporters not only in a nonprofit’s local area but worldwide, digital fundraising helps nonprofits reach more people to make a difference.
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