6 Tips for Raising More Money Online for Your Nonprofit

On average, online giving represents 12-17% of an organization’s total fundraising revenue, and this percentage is only growing from year to year. More and more donors want to give through online channels, making it crucial to do everything you can to improve your nonprofit’s online giving process and better appeal to these donors.

There are plenty of avenues you can explore to raise more funds online, from adding SMS marketing to your strategy to launching an online peer-to-peer campaign. No matter what you choose, use these six tips to make the most of your chosen strategies and secure more online gifts. Let’s dive in!

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1. Optimize Your Website for Conversions

Your nonprofit’s website is your online fundraising hub. It not only houses your donation page, but it also leads both new and existing supporters to learn more about your work and inspires them to get involved. To make your online fundraising efforts more effective, start by optimizing your website.

Evaluate your website and look for opportunities to make it more engaging and user-friendly. Think about what would lead someone to donate online, such as a large, clickable “Donate” button on your homepage or a compelling story about donors’ impact.

Common website improvements might include:

• Making your site more mobile-friendly so donors can access it on their phones. 
• Improving the call to action (CTA) buttons across your website.
• Simplifying your donation form by removing non-essential fields.
• Creating content that inspires giving from new and existing supporters.
• Improving your website’s user experience (UX) and navigation.

Once you update your website, Kanopi recommends monitoring website performance KPIs like bounce rate, time on site, new vs. returning visitors, and traffic sources to find more areas for improvement. These metrics help you understand how users interact with your website and what strategies are best for engaging them.

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2. Use a Holistic, Multichannel Strategy

Most nonprofits don’t raise 100% of their revenue online or 100% offline—it comes from a mix of strategies including online marketing, direct mail, fundraising events, and in-person solicitation. The goal is to create a healthy balance and use each of your fundraising channels to support the others, rather than limiting yourself to only one avenue for donations.

To boost both online and offline fundraising revenue, create a multichannel strategy that leans into the strengths of the following channels:

• Your website: Create campaign pages, blog posts, and an “About” page that use both text and visuals to communicate your nonprofit’s purpose and show donors how they can make a difference to your cause.
• Email: Use email to share longer informational messages like impact reports and announcements about new online fundraising campaigns. 
• SMS: Text messages have extremely high open rates, making them highly effective ways to build relationships with donors, inspire giving to time-sensitive campaigns, and share quick updates about your work.
• Direct mail: Fundraising appeal letters delivered to donors’ doors are personal and powerful. And yes, direct mail can help you boost online giving! Just add a QR code that recipients can quickly scan to access your online donation page.
• Events: Both in-person and virtual events help you connect with donors face-to-face and can inspire giving in many forms, such as auction bidding or peer-to-peer pledges.

Create content across these channels that tells your nonprofit’s story in compelling, cohesive ways. For example, you might write a blog post about your nonprofit’s newest sustainability initiative, then send a text inviting donors to read the post and donate to support your project.

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3. Build Out Your Contact List

One of the most valuable online fundraising assets you have is your contact list: your list of donors, prospects, volunteers, and other individuals who have given you their permission to communicate with them via email and/or text. Once someone opts in, your nonprofit can send them tailored messages about your fundraising campaigns to keep your organization top of mind.

However, it takes time and energy to build your contact list. Collect more opt-ins by taking the following steps:

1. Add a form to your website’s homepage that lets visitors quickly sign up to receive emails and text messages.
2. Add a checkbox for opting into emails and texts on your donation and event registration pages.
3. Use your CRM or marketing apps to house contact information and sort contacts into groups.

A large contact list enables you to reach more people where they are instead of waiting for prospective donors to find you. To use these opt-ins wisely, make sure to segment your contacts based on shared characteristics and only send messages that are relevant to the recipient’s interests and preferences. 

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4. Automate Personalized Outreach

Automation is a powerful tool for communicating with online donors in relevant, personalized ways that inspire future donations.

‍Mogli’s Salesforce SMS guide explains how text message automation allows you to schedule follow-up texts, requests for feedback, and personalized reminders that are triggered by certain actions. For instance, new supporters who register for an online event might receive an automated text that thanks them for registering and invites them to learn more about your organization by clicking a link to your blog. 

Or, you might send the following text to an event attendee who expressed interest in your nonprofit’s endowment fund:

‍Elliot, thanks again for joining us last week! Are you still interested in donating to our endowment? Read about the difference it makes or give today using this link.

Automated outreach isn’t limited to text messages, either. With the right tools, you can automate your outreach across channels to cut down on administrative work and engage more online donors. 

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5. Highlight the Benefits of Matching Gifts

Imagine how much more you could raise online if every gift you received was doubled by the donor’s employer. You can make this a reality by promoting matching gifts!

Matching gift programs are a corporate philanthropy initiative in which businesses commit to matching their employees' donations dollar for dollar to nonprofits like yours. This means that a $50 donation could turn into a $100 donation at no extra cost to your donor, helping your nonprofit raise more online while allowing individual donors to make a greater impact on your cause.

You can boost your online donation revenue just by highlighting matching gifts across your:

• Donation page
• “Ways to Give” page 
• Multichannel marketing materials
• Personalized fundraising appeals

Encourage your donors to check their eligibility for matching gifts and submit requests to their employers. Explain what matching gifts are, why they’re so beneficial, and how to request a matching donation.

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6. Use Social Media as a Funnel

Social media sites are great places to have conversations with supporters and deepen your relationships, but they don’t directly lead to donations as often as other channels. 

When developing your online fundraising strategy, see social media sites for what they are: excellent funnels where you can engage current donors, find new supporters, and encourage people to visit your organization’s website to learn more. Instead of using social media to directly ask for donations, focus your social media strategy on directing potential donors to your website.

This might involve posting infographics about your cause, promoting new blog posts, or sharing snippets of videos that users can watch fully on your website. Once social media users are on your site, they’re more likely to sign up for text messages or fill out another form that adds them to your contact list, giving you more opportunities to steward them toward making a gift.

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Don’t forget to thank every donor who makes an online contribution to your nonprofit. Donor retention is easier and more cost-effective than acquisition, so it’s well worth your time to acknowledge online donors and strengthen these relationships over time.