The donation form or widget on your charity website is the most important piece of ‘infrastructure’ in your fundraising tool kit.
Most charities have a website that serves two purposes
- Explain and showcase your mission or service
- Fundraise and accept donations
We know you know how best to explain and promote your great work in the community
But let us help you get more donations from your supporters.
Position
First your DONATE NOW button must be on your website on the top right hand side
It must be a visible Call to Action (CTA) button. Nice and big. Don’t be shy.
The button should link to an anchor point on your home page or another dedicated page
Form or widget?
On the dedicated page or anchor point you should embed a donation from or widget.
A Donation Form is one long continuous area to add information.
A Donation Widget tends to be more compact, a little neater. Arguably they entice the donor so they only need to select or add data for the few fields on the screen before moving to the next screen. Typically, the first screen will be for amount selection. Second screen for personal information, third screen for credit card.
The widget is customised to match your brand colours
Donation amounts
Know as “dollar handles” donation amounts can be customised by you
You may want small dollar handles for fortnightly regular giving. Conversely you may want larger amounts for special projects. You may create dollar handles with impact labels to explain what a donation buys. For example “Your $50 donation will help fill the pantry of a family in need”.
We recommend that you ensure one value is the default value. This can be done in your settings. Pro tip – You can test that the default value is most likely selected by donors by creating a default value that is not round such as $103.
Custom data
You can collect as much datas required on your donation widget but it’s a good idea to KISS – Keep it simple… No one wants to fill out endless fields. With mycause we aim for a smooth and seamless donation process with reduced friction for your donors. The better and faster the experience the more likely they are to return and less likely to bounce off the form.
Regular giving
Regular Giving as an option on your donation widget is a great way to encourage your supporters to give regularly. Regular Giving is the holy grail for charities and we aim to help you achieve more regular donations. Set regular giving options as fortnightly or monthly. For more specialised regular giving you can embed a special Regular Giving only widget.
Payment options
Your mycause donation widget comes out of the box with the following payment options:
VISA, MASTERCARD, AMEX, APPLE PAY, GOOGLE PAY, PAYPAL
You don’t have to worry about setting up merchant accounts on any platform!
Easy set up
How long does it take to set up a donation widget you ask? Well about 10 minutes! Yes! First you customise the widget in your mycause Partner Dashboard. Then you simply copy the code (click the “copy code button”) and paste into your website.
The widget magically generates on your website. Any future changes you make in your Partner Dashboard are automatically reflected on your website. You never have to copy the code again.
Receipting
Your donors receive a tax receipt with your brand and your custom text.
Data
Keeping in touch with your donors and entering them into your ‘donor journey’ is key to maintaining and engaging your supporters. mycause helps you achieve this by automatically synching your data to your preferred donor database.
