Fundraising Tip: How To Raise More Money Online

BDPA Education and Technology Foundation (BETF) exists to raise money to support BDPA programs all over the nation.  Our story of helping young people win the future by working with them on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs is a powerful one.  Our challenge is turning the power of that story into donations to our nonprofit.  We need to do a much better job in meeting our fundraising goals.

I think that the following fundraising tip may be a helpful reminder to all of us that work with nonprofits that are doing good works.

Make Your Donation Button Shine

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Online fundraising is a critical component of any individual fundraising strategy. It's the fastest-growing piece of the development pie, plus when people hear about your organization, want to learn more, or seek updates on your work, they will visit your Web site.

It is critical to make sure that visitors can find your donation button within two seconds of clicking on your home page. This means that the button should be sizeable, colorful, prominent, and "above the fold," meaning it's visible on the page without the need to scroll down.

Play around with different iterations if you can and carefully note the impact on conversation rates and donation amounts -- Network for Good performed a test on their Web site and witnessed a 30 percent greater conversion when they changed their donation button from gray to red. Conversion at the last mile is key, so analyze how many people click on the button versus how many actually donate. If the link doesn't go straight to the donation page, fix it! You should also get creative and use images or different words to relate a donation to something tangible, e.g. "donate a science book" or "save our children's future."

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Few, if any, of the local BDPA chapter websites are taking advantage of this tip. The National BDPA website has a 'donations' button located at the bottom of their left-hand navigation bar. We don't have a 'donate now' button on our BETF homepage. We have a 'Donate' option in the navigation bar ... but, I've learned from this fundraising tip that we're missing the boat on this one!

DONATE NOW!

This tip is inspired by Darian Heyman's new book, 'Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals'.

Does this tip seem like one that you might use for your local chapter or nonprofit? If not, do you have a fundraising tip that you would like to share with us?