By John Killoran 

Developing your website and ensuring your donors have the ability to donate to your organization online was a great undertaking for you. You probably saw a spike in donations and donor engagement. But did you know there’s a way to make online giving even more effective?

By adjusting your website design and donation opportunities to appeal to mobile donors, you open up a new avenue for giving to your nonprofit organization.

In order to effectively appeal to your mobile donors, your organization should:

1. Optimize your donation page.
2. Launch a text-to-give campaign.
3. Maximize your social media campaign.
4. Incorporate mobile-optimized emails.
5. Host a pledge campaign.

Ready to learn more about mobile responsiveness? Let’s get started:

1. Optimize Your Donation Page

Your online giving form is a great place to start your mobile optimization processes. Submitting online donations is already incredibly convenient for your supporters. But making your online giving form mobile responsive makes it easy for people to give from any device, further growing your potential base of donors.

Make sure your donation page is mobile responsive. Mobile responsiveness is when a website or other online resource automatically adjusts to fit the screen on which it is displayed. This means the online resource is visually appealing on smartphones, tablets, and desktops alike.

It should be easy to read your online giving form from any screen. Make sure your online donation platform provider offers the ability to adjust form elements such as

• Images. Make sure your images are visible, clear, and size-adjustable depending on the screen they are viewed on. There’s nothing worse than having to scroll across a webpage on your phone to try to see an entire image.
• Straight-forward text. Eliminate unnecessary or “fluff” text from your donation page. Lots of text can look bulky on a smaller screen. Limiting this text to only include essential information will make it easier for donors to read or skim the page.
• Customized (and limited) information fields. Typing lengthy information onto a form on a computer is much easier than on a cell phone. Most of us type much faster with a keyboard than on a touchscreen. Therefore, limit the amount of information you require from mobile donors on your donation page to speed up the process.
• Page Speed. Page speed is an even more important element for mobile users than desktop users because many people are more willing to wait for a page to load from their computer than from their phone. Increase your page speed by minifying code, reducing redirects, and compressing images.

Ensuring your donation page is welcoming to all visitors, whether they access it from their computer or from their cell phone, is a key factor in higher donation rates. If more people can access the page more often, you don’t turn off the donors who would have otherwise given while on-the-go.

2. Launch a Text-to-Give Campaign

In addition to optimizing your usual online fundraising page, a great way to encourage mobile donations from your donors is by including a text-to-give option. As the name suggests, text-to-give encourages donors to text their donations to organizations.

Depending on the software you choose, you may encounter different models of the text-to-give collection process. Your provider should:

• Offer your organization a text-to-give number. This is the number your donors can text in order to donate. The number may be a whole phone number or simply 5 digits for simplicity. Your donors can text the amount of the gift they wish to give to your organization when prompted.

• Direct the donor to necessary giving information. This is especially relevant for first-time donors who have not yet filled out any information with your organization. They may be directed to a pre-written email that when sent will complete the donation after they fill out the necessary fields on the donation form or the gift could be added to their cell phone bill at the end of the month.

A text-to-give option is an easy method of giving no matter which of the submission options is offered by the provider. Be sure to consider your donors when deciding between these methods to ensure it will be the easiest for your particular donor audience.

Mobile giving with a text-to-give campaign is a great resource to combine with other unique fundraising ideas. For instance, if you host a fundraising event, announce the donation opportunity over a loudspeaker so that your attendees can donate from the event.

3. Maximize Your Social Media Campaigns

One platform nonprofits often already take advantage of is social media. Social media was built to be viewed from mobile devices using sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Therefore, that is where the majority of people are viewing their social media feeds.

Be sure to use social media as an integral part of your optimization strategies to appeal to mobile donors.

Increasing your social media presence increases the likelihood your followers will see your organization’s latest updates when scrolling through their news feed. Increasing this presence by posting more frequently is just the tip of the iceberg to use your social media to its fullest extent.  

You also have the ability to spread fundraisers through social media platforms for people to view (and donate to) from their mobile devices. Two of the online fundraisers most suitable for social media promotion include:

• Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding enables your organization to collect small donations from a wide audience, making the wide reach of social media the perfect platform to promote such campaigns. Conduct research on the various providers to make sure you choose the website that will best suit your organization in terms of fees and platform capabilities.

• Peer-to-peer fundraising. Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns are similar to crowdfunding in that you are collecting small donations from a wide audience. However, these campaigns differ in how those donations are collected. With peer-to-peer fundraising, you invite your supporters to create fundraising pages and raise money on your behalf across their respective networks.

Both of these fundraising opportunities are more frequently found from a person’s mobile device as opposed to their home computer because of their reliance on social media. Therefore, increasing your visibility with more frequent posts and starting a mobile-minded fundraiser is a great way to entice your wide audience of donors who prefer to work from their smartphones.

If peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns or crowdfunding sound like opportunities from which your organization could benefit, launch into further research with Double the Donation’s nonprofit guide.

4. Incorporate Mobile-Optimized Emails

When you are considering the optimization of your web presence, you probably think of your website or online donation pages. Don’t forget that your emails are another online resource frequently accessed from mobile devices.

Optimizing your email content is very similar to optimizing your general website or donation pages. Take the necessary steps to ensure your images are properly sized and adjust with the size of the screen. Limit the amount of text you use in your emails and be sure the font size is appropriate for a mobile viewer. Be sure the email is visually appealing on screens of all sizes.

However, in addition to these general tips, there is more you can do to increase the success of mobile donations from your emails. For instance, you can:

• Include actionable donation buttons. Optimize the buttons you use in your emails in order to quickly and easily lead donors to donation options. Increasing the size of these buttons for mobile viewers can make them easier to see (and click!) from a small screen such as a smartphone.

• Connect your emails to other platforms. Be sure your donors have an easy way to access the other donation platforms you have available online. For instance, including social media buttons will instantly connect your supporters to future crowdfunding campaigns. You may also choose to include a link to your donation page and the number for your text-to-give campaign to regular emails.

• Feature a calendar with donation opportunities. Be sure your supporters know about upcoming opportunities for more donations with a comprehensive calendar feature. This may include volunteer opportunities for them to donate their time as well as upcoming fundraising campaigns to get involved in.

Regular emails, such as email newsletters, are a donation opportunity that should be taken advantage of more often in the nonprofit world. Many of your supporters likely check their email from their phones, so be sure they have direct access from that device to other donation opportunities.

5. Host a Pledge Campaign.

Just imagine you’re holding a fundraising event. You’ve set up a text-to-give number and the success is overwhelming. However, there are a number of people at the event who can’t give to your organization right at this moment. Even if they want to, they just can’t for some reason or another.

Pledge campaigns are designed to help your organization in these types of situations. You can appeal to those people who can’t give right at this moment, but have the heart and the desire to show their support and give in the future.

Pledges are the promises of future donations. Someone can pledge $100 now, then actually give the money to the organization next week. Choose an online tool with the option to optimize your pledge campaign to mobile. This will make it especially effective for the situation above. Other situations in which a mobile-optimized pledge campaign may come handy include:

• Social media fundraising pushes. In addition to your typical fundraising promotions featured on social media, including your other fundraising campaigns or advocating for your organization’s cause, give people the option to participate in your pledge campaign. This gives people the opportunity to pledge money, then go to your website and see more information about the organization before they give.

• When there is a lot going on in the world. For instance, if your organization is tied to a world event that went on recently, let’s just say clean up from the devastation of a hurricane, the event will be in the news for a couple days. At that point, many people will forget their drive to give, even if they still care about the cause. The pledge to give money helps keep your cause in the forefront of your donor’s mind.

Many times people will hear about and see news events, social media fundraising efforts, and other donation opportunities from their phones. Even if they don’t have time to give right away, they’ll pledge to make a donation in the future.

Be sure to pick a pledge fundraising tool that offers mobile customization for your organization. Pledge buttons included on these screens can help boost the user’s ease of using the tool as well.

Before starting your pledge campaign, be sure to check out resources like Snowball’s guide to collecting pledges so that every stage of the pledge campaign is executed to the best of your ability.

Optimizing your web presence over a variety of pages, platforms, etc. can help boost your donation amounts by increasing the available opportunities to give. These 5 tips can help you optimize your overall online presence to benefit both your donors and your organization.

John Killoran is CEO of Snowball, an exciting new fundraising technology that makes it easy for people to donate in two clicks from text, email, web and social media sites.  John pioneered SMTP payments and has been a major innovator in the mobile payments space for the past 5 years.  When he is not running a company, he is cooking food for his family and telling his dogs to stop barking.