Nonprofit Diseases: Web Blockage

Go ahead. Visit any random nonprofit website, and try to give online. Unless you happen to hit one of the rare sites that practices excellent online fundraising (there are a few), you'll find Web Blockage -- things that make it hard for donors to donate:

• Donation pages that have little or no info about the gift. (In essence, blank reply devices.)
  
• Ultra-long forms as the first step in giving.
  
• Unclear instructions
  
• Gift engines that force donors to register even for the privilege of seeing the donation page.
  

Donation pages around the web are a rogue's gallery of donation-stopping techno-follies like these and many others. These Web Blockages are costing their owners revenue. Worse, they're failing to serve donors -- they're making it hard for them to do what they came to you to do.

The record level of online giving that followed last December's tsunami disaster showed us that the web is a maturing medium -- and the medium of choice for a growing number of donors.

The time to make your website donor-friendly is now. For the most part, that means using common sense. You have years of experience creating direct-mail reply devices that work. You know that each one needs to have these characteristics:

• Complete and compelling description of the fundraising offer.
  
• Motivating, emotional language.
  
• Simplicity and clarity.
  
• Choices for the donor.
  
• Relevance to the donor.
  

A good start for a strong online giving page would be to make it just like good paper reply device. And then make it better. Online reply devices are more flexible than the paper model, so why not make them even better? They can do nifty, donor-friendly things like:

• Forms already filled out (assuming you know who's visiting that page).
  
• Gift arrays based on where the donor came from.
  
• Instant calculations of the impact of a gift.
  

Study your web usage statistics. They will show you exactly where you Web Blockages are -- the points at which donors abandon their attempts to give. (If your web people won't give you the information, fire them.) Be willing to make meaningful changes to remove every source of blockage. This may require different kinds of programming. (If your web people won't fix it, fire them.)

If you rigorously test and improve your donation pages, you'll end up with a blockage-free website -- ready for the coming day when online fundraising really takes off. (That day, some would say, is already here!)

This originally appeared in slightly different form in the Journal of the DMA Nonprofit Federation, a print-only newsletter.

Technorati Tag: fundraising

Comments

[Gayle Roberts]

Hi Jeff,

And it is not just the forms. Friday I attempted without success to reach Development Directors at two major local community health centers. Neither agency website contained a staff directory or information on how to contact the development department directly, either via phone or email. Both main phone lines were answered by automated voice mail systems that offered no transfer options. Instead, by default I was dropped into a general voicemail box, where a recorded voice told me that my call would returned within 24 hours. Frankly, today that is too late.

Luv your blog.

Peace,
Gayle
Fundraising for Nonprofits
gayleroberts.com/blog