Did you know fifty-four per cent of donors across the globe say that they prefer to donate online? That’s a big number, and they’ll be much more inclined to contribute to your charity if your website makes it easy for them to do so. You don’t want to be missing out on valuable donations because your website is poorly designed!

If you want to make sure your website is working as hard as possible, we’ve listed 5 simple steps that will help you improve its design and start bringing in more donations.

1. Improve & Simplify Your Messaging

A clear and understandable message is essential if you want people to (A) know what your charity is about and (B) feel compelled to donate to your cause. 

When you’re writing copy for your website, whether it’s for the home page, the About Us page, the donations page, or anything in between — here are some key questions to make sure you’re answering:

• What is your not-for-profit’s mission?

• Who or what do you help?

• What do you actually do?

• What makes you different from other organisations?

• What impact or progress have you had?

• How can the website visitor get involved?

• What will their donations or support be used for?

If you’re answering all of these questions, you can feel confident that your organisation’s message is getting across. This, in turn, will help you to see better results from your fundraising and volunteer recruiting efforts.

Are you unsure of whether or not you’re answering these questions? Ask for help from some people who don’t know about your organisation.

Can they tell you what the charity is about? Do they understand what you want them to do? If they can’t answer these questions, you may need to rewrite your text.

2. Update Your Calls to Action

Of all the text on your website, the most important is your call to action.

A call to action is a message that encourages visitors to, you guessed it, take action and do something to support your organisation. It might be signing up to volunteer, making a donation, signing up for recurring donations, signing up for your email newsletter, etc.

Remember, every page on your website needs to have a specific purpose with a clear call to action. It should be strategically placed on the page as well — that way, visitors can easily find it and click on it. 

Keep in mind, too, that your call to action button should be in a contrasting colour to the background of your website. It should draw people’s eyes right away and guide them to give it a click. 

Finally, don’t forget to check that all the call to action links are working properly. Nothing turns website visitors off faster than clicking something and ending up on a 404 error page!

3. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

More than half of your traffic will come from a mobile and Twenty-eight per cent of online donations will come from a mobile device as well. If you want to increase the number of donations your non-profit receives, you need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

A mobile-friendly website will look good and be easy to navigate from a variety of smartphones and tablets, not just desktop computers.

Take a look at your current website to see how it looks on your smartphone or a tablet. Do you have to constantly pinch the screen or scroll up and down to navigate through it? If you do, it’s not mobile-friendly.

If you need more motivation to increase your site’s ability to adapt to different devices, remember that mobile-friendly websites are more search engine-optimised compared to non-mobile-friendly ones.

Search engines give priority to mobile-friendly websites and reward them with a higher ranking on results pages. This means more people will be able to find your organisation, learn about your values, and make donations online.

4. Personalise & Simplify the Donor Experience

Don’t forget to personalise and simplify the donor experience as much as possible. 

When people receive personalised messages, such as thank-you emails or follow-ups to show them how their money was spent, this encourages them to make more donations in the future. It helps you to build relationships with your audience and set your non-profit up for long-term success.

As for simplifying the donor experience, people will be much more inclined to donate if you make it easy for them to do so. 

Aim to set up the online donation experience so that people can give money in as few steps as possible. If they have to input tons of personal information, go through 5 different pages, and complete a Captcha test before they can donate, there’s a good chance they’re going to click away altogether.

5. Display Tangible Benefits

Finally, make sure you’re sharing tangible benefits on your website. In other words, make it clear how people’s money is being used to aid a specific cause.

People want to know that their money is going where you say it’s going. They want to feel confident that they’re truly making a difference in the world by supporting your charity.

To encourage more donations and build trust among your audience, provide tangible proof of the work your non-profit does. The more transparent you can be, the better.

Not sure how to display tangible benefits?

You might want to show a picture of the school you were able to build in 2021 thanks to the donations you received in 2020. You could also share the number of homeless pets you were able to relocate thanks to the number of donations you received last year. 

Get More Donations With DonationHub

As you can see, there are lots of steps you can take to improve your nonprofit’s website design and attract more donors. Keep these tips in mind so you can start making positive changes today. 

If you want to generate more donations and streamline the payment process, DonationHub is the perfect solution.

Our tool allows people to customise donations to their favourite charities, easily manage them in one place, and feel confident that their money is going directly to the organisation without interference from any middlemen. We also have a widget you can easily install on your website to not only make donating a breeze, but you can enjoy super low fees.

Click on the button below for some more information about how DonationHub can help you grow!