How to Spark Online Donor Relationships Built on Trust

We’re all about if you’re a nonprofit, we’re the bubble to your government, the peanut butter to your fundraising jelly. We’re digital fundraising platform proven to be the fastest way to more donations. Guaranteed. Just like the website Read More

We’re all about if you’re a nonprofit, we’re the bubble to your government, the peanut butter to your fundraising jelly. We’re digital fundraising platform proven to be the fastest way to more donations. Guaranteed. Just like the website says, accepting donations online. Everybody’s doing it. You fundraise online? Yeah, do you? I’m trying. Exactly. That’s the unique power of gift cloud. As Jackie, one of our customers, Jackie, what do you think? The problem is, the donation form you’re using today lacks that human connection. Now imagine an online experience that makes your donors feel like they’re making an impact, rather than a donation. That’s what your successful and sustainable fundraising deserves. So if you’re ready to increase your average donation, reward and captivate your donors, and reach your fundraising goals faster, you owe it to your mission, your purpose, join the fundraising revolution today.

All right, hello. Hello. My name is Shawna Taro, and I am a DonorPerfect training specialist. Welcome to How to spark online donor relationships built on trust. Let me tell you a little bit about your speaker Josh. He is the CEO and founder of gift cloud, a trailblazing tech company that revolutionizes fundraising and donor experiences in the 21st century. With a passion for helping others do their life’s best work, Josh leads a team of dedicated people who share his vision of empowering nonprofits. To change the world. He envisions a world where nonprofits can focus more on their mission and spend less time in their suits and ties, asking for money and more time focusing on what they were born to do change the world. Prior to give cloud Josh build enterprise applications for the United States Government Supply Chain Management applications were in service call applications and E commerce software for brick and mortar retailers. With a background in sales strategy, design and development. Josh has spent over a decade building innovative solutions that solve real world problems. Join Josh in his mission to revolutionize the world of fundraising and empower nonprofits to create lasting change. Now, before I hand the session over to Josh, I’d like to address a few housekeeping items. All presentations are attached to the session and can be downloaded for your review. Please be sure to add your questions to the q&a tab so that we can see them and get them answered for you. All sessions are recorded and will be found on our DonorPerfect website and post conference. Without further ado, let’s give a warm welcome to Josh take it away.

Thank you, Shawn. Man, that means a lot to me. That was a great intro. I appreciate that. Man. What I want to do today is get you all excited about your digital fundraising and feeling equipped with practical steps you can take to make a meaningful impact in how much you raise online. As John said, I’m Josh, CEO and founder here at gift cloud and from teaching myself to code in high school to building applications for state governments and omni channel e commerce, technology and so on. I’ve always been motivated to leverage my energy and my skills to help ill resourced entrepreneurs around the world. And there’s no more ill resourced entrepreneur than the world changers who feel born to feed the hungry to educate and protect the vulnerable, solve climate challenges, tackle social issues, and create a better world and too often those very same world changers are stuck fumbling around with software instead of making an impact. And that’s why I founded give cloud to help untie your hands the hands of world changers, so you can focus on making an impact. With gift cloud organizations can launch on unparalleled online fundraising experiences without the help of a programmer. The results is fundraising experiences designed to build trust and connection which creates a more delighted donor which means a more devoted donor. Well enough about me using the live chat, which I hope I can see here now To open up live chat awesome. Thinking about the last digital campaign that you ran, how many of you are certain you left some money on the table? Your confidence? You could have done more. Maybe you don’t know exactly what or how? How many of you know you could have done better online.

While this live chat is bumping Well, listen, it’s exactly where I want to encourage you guys today, helping you make sure you leave nothing on the table when you engage your donors online. But everything I’m going to share today starts with a shift in mindset. Too often, we get too focused on what we’re doing to process online donations. Instead of starting with how and why what do I mean, focused on maybe improving our donation form, even maybe having a couple fewer form fields or fewer clicks? These are all answers to what we’re doing online. But in order to really succeed online, we have to zoom out. The most successful online fundraising does not start with form clicks and form fields and conversions. Although all of that matters, and I will talk about that. The most successful online fundraising starts with a mindset, delighting your donors. A delighted donor is a donor who feels a connection to your mission. A delighted donor cares about how much they give a delighted donor wants to maximize their impact. A deleted donor engages with your mission delighted donor advocates for your mission. But how do you create a delighted donor? It takes a delightful experience. A delightful experience inspires your donors. A delightful experience keeps your donors focused on that skip a beat feeling they feel when they have they feel they have in their hearts about making an impact through your organization. A delightful experience instills trust in your donors. How many of you would characterize your online giving experience as delightful and don’t use the live chat to answer that? This is all I do and give cloud as our product innovator. My goal is to ensure every measure has been taken to delight your donor to maximize your donors experience and ultimately their devotion to your mission. Remember, a delighted donor is a devoted donor. A devoted donor means more revenue, it means more engagement. It means more advocacy. It means more support for your mission. Okay, but how do we create delightful experience online? I’m going to walk you through the five most common mistakes I see nonprofits make, in their donation experience five ways. I see nonprofits fumble an opportunity to create connection. Five ways I see organizations fail in creating a delightful experience that builds trust and devotion. The first is a poor user journey. What does poor user journey mean? A delightful experience starts from the moment your donor becomes aware of your organization. This could be an ad they saw this could be fundraiser they are invited to a social posts in their community or word of mouth. I see very few nonprofits craft a journey for their potential supporters starting from the moment of awareness all the way through to devoted support. Instead, they crafts individual elements without considering any cohesion between those elements. Some great examples of a poor user journey include inconsistent narratives and a lack of cohesion between messaging elements, premature exits and missed opportunities for meaningful connections, excessive content, confusing navigation, and cumbersome donation forms. You know 18% of people abandon their cart. Because of a long and complicated checkout process. You know that multi step form variations tend to see a conversion increase of about 21.4% Hey, listen, I want to do a bit of an exercise I want to paint help us paint a mental picture. It’s important that you feel how your donors feel when you don’t zoom out and cry. After a cohesive user journey and imagine for a second I’ve just put on your favorite track. This is your jam. What is it? Whitney Houston, prints the Backstreet Boys. And oh for my daughter’s to be Taylor Swift. And your brain is in the flow states, you’re feeling a connection to your jam. This is your song, your mental momentum kicks in. You got to hear the whole song. And then quite suddenly, Baby shark comes on. flow state disengages your connections lost, you’re confused. You start looking for the mute button, you’re taken out of the flow, your connections broken, you’re distracted, the journey has been disrupted. On the flip side, just like playing your favorite track continuously. Your donation form should seamlessly open over your fundraising story, complementing your story, your impact without disrupting the flow than the rhythm of a multi step donation process takes over, keeping the checkout simple and focused on impact through to the end of your favorite jam. On the left is a more typical donation flow, multiple panels unfocused overwhelming akin to filing something with the IRS, perhaps someone just cranked up an awful song right in the middle of your jam. On the right is what we developed with good cloud. It overlays and complements your story. It’s a simple layout. And, and the flow engages your user. Someone just cranked up your favorite tune, the number one poor user journey, I really hope that anecdote made sense. The second way I see organizations fail, in creating a delightful experience that builds trust and devotion is adding way too many form fields to their donation process. There’s an uncomfortable truth. It should be truly rare. When you require more than just the credit card and the email to process a digital payment from a digital compliance standpoint. And best practices. This is all that’s required to process an online payment. I know that waits thing for some of you to hear. I want you to ask yourself another question. What are you hungry are for as a nonprofit data or a devoted donor? What would your donation form reflect a devotion to delight a donor or a devotion to data? Josh, listen, you’re not being fair. You’re making data sound like it’s a bad thing. Listen, don’t get me wrong, I adore data. The more data you can reasonably collect from your donor, the better you’ll be able to steward that donor. The key word here is reasonably know what is reasonable to ask your donor during a donation. Did you know that more than 1/3 of nonprofits ask 20 or more questions on their donation form. Research shows that reducing these fields to below 10 will increase your conversions by 100%, not 10% 100%. And if you can get the fields for or less, it’s as high as 160%. Want you to take off your fundraising high, sperm minute, to now the voice of the individual on your leadership team that’s begging you for more data just for a minute and put yourself in the shoes of your donor. You imagine feeling a deep connection to a cause. And that connection feels personal. You feel deeply. Maybe you’ve lost someone and you want to make an impact in their name. And then you land on a multi page questionnaire. You’re thinking why is this cumbersome? Worse? You think you know what, I’ll get back to this later, and you never do. Meanwhile, you hop back into normal life. Completing your next Amazon order with one click and signing up for Netflix with just your credit card. On the flip side, here’s an example of how you can substantially reduce formfields without compromising the data you collect. These are the two only two screens in the give cloud multi step checkout process Okay, between both of these screens, we’re actually collecting over 13 data points. But we’re capturing them in just four simple fields a single credit card field that actually captures the card, the expiry dates, the CVV. Donor name, which is actually first thing first and last names and their email address, and one address field that’s capturing the six data points that make up an address

of a Josh, what about how they heard about our organization or special notes. You can use upsell screens after the donation is completed to collect non critical data, what we’ve observed is that the donor so delighted at how fast and easy it was to donate, they are happy to continue with a couple of additional questions. There are ways to substantially reduce your formfields. delight your donors, and stay obsessed with your data. I hope that encourages you. Poor user journey to many form fields. The third way I see organizations fail in creating a delightful experience that builds trust and devotion is not offering convenient enough payment methods to their supporters. That too many of us underestimate the distraction of having to type your entire credit card number. It’s the one piece of personal payment data. We don’t memorize 99% of the time we have to pull out our credit card when we pay online. Meanwhile, we have our billing address and our email address memorized. All it takes. We’ve all experienced this is a doorbell mistype a dog bark or screaming child to distract a donor from from completing their donation. Did you know that it’s common for most nonprofits to have an over 60% abandoned rate for their donations 60%. Did you know that Google Pay has 150 million users. PayPal has 236 million users. Apple Pay has a whopping 640 million users, there’s over 1 billion users ready to donate with one tap of their digital wallet. Put yourself in the shoes of your donor I can think of no more frustrating experience than placing an order at my favorite drive thru. Just to realize their point of sale isn’t working. And I just want my number five combo. Thankfully, in the case of fundraising online, you’re not going to deal with a hangry donor if a payment becomes a challenge. But the point still stands, there’s a significant gut punch. That happens when it’s cumbersome to pay. Donors just want to make an impact. Let them get to it conveniently offering wallet pay options like PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay dramatically reduce friction during the donation. It’s a one touch way to pay and still collect information from your donors by the way. Organizations who accept wallet pay options, see dramatically higher conversions in a much shorter time to check out. All right, poor user journey to many form fields. In convenient payment methods. The fourth way, I see organizations fail in creating a delightful experience that builds trust and devotion is unnecessary redirects. Frankly. I’m scared to read the slide. redirects are so 1999 I’m scared because I know so many of us are doing this. I’m shocked that it’s still a thing and 2024 the progress made in web technologies enables anyone to complete transactions directly on their website without redirecting to other websites and services. There’s just no reason for it. The uncomfortable truth is if your provider requires redirects, it could be a sign that they’re running some aging technologies behind the scenes. All a redirect does is confuse your donor. slow down the process. And back to my original example, please Baby shark in the middle of your favorite jam question using the live chat. How long does it Take before a website feels like it’s taking too long to load. In your mind, you’re pulled up a website, it’s taking second 234. At what point are you like this is done, I’m out 47% of people expect web pages to load in just under two seconds. 40% of users will abandon their donation after three seconds. On a mobile device, every second it takes to load the page you lose, on average 20% of your donors. The hiccup in loading that occurs when you’re redirecting your donors is in entirely to an entirely new website is negatively impacting your donors experience and your fundraising online. Remember, there’s just nothing more jarring than someone throwing on a trash song in the middle of your favorite jam. The exact same set of emotions come into play your flow states disengaged. But even worse, in the case of a redirect suspense, suspicion starts to come into play. Your donors wondering where have I been sent? Killing your redirect and overlaying your donation experience directly on your fundraising page is one of the most effective ways to keep a delightful and trustworthy momentum going for your donor. Poor user journey to many form fields, inconvenient payment methods, unnecessary redirects. And the fifth and last way I see organizations fail in creating a delightful experience that builds trust and devotion is an untrustworthy donation experience. Think about it. When we surf the web, we make snap judgments on how trustworthy a digital experience is based on factors we may not even be conscious of. How about that website, you visit on your phone doesn’t quite fit the screen screen right? The fonts are a little bit off, maybe they’re too big, it’s too small. And there’s so much unnecessary scrolling, without weird browser warning you’re getting about the page not being secure. Or that donation page that is so bare bones. There’s no mention of the nonprofit, its status, its legal identifier or where the money’s even going. 17% of people abandon their online shopping cart. If they don’t trust the website to enter their credit card. Imagine someone showing up at your front door. Saying that they’re fundraising for your favorite organization, you’re Hampt but they don’t have a batch. Like a big barbecue stain on their front shirt. The shoelaces untied they’re not communicating super well. You’re starting to get suspicious. Listen on your donation forms. Keep your brand clear. Keep your color simple. Show a little bit of fine print that demonstrates some legal compliance. Embrace some empty space around your form. This is the virtual version of showing up to your donors doorstep in a suit and tie clean and trustworthy. So there it is. Hope you guys enjoyed that. It’s five ways I see organizations fail in creating a delightful experience that builds trust and devotion, poor user journey. Too many form fields, inconvenient payment methods, unnecessary redirects, and a big barbecue stain on your shirt. Remember, you want to focus on delighting your donors. Sorry, Shawn.

Oh, no. Were you not ready for me?

Sorry, buddy. You’re good. You’re good. You’re good. I just want to remind you that a delighted donor back back to that high level thinking that zoom out zooming out thinking, the thinking that will inspire your team as you think about digital fundraising in 2020 for a delighted donor is a more devoted donor. A devoted donor Gibbs faster. A devoted donor gives more at devoted daughter gives more often, and a devoted donor is more likely to tell their community a delighted donor is a more devoted donor. Goal make more delightful experiences and more devoted donors. Shawn, back to you, bro.

Josh, thank you, Josh. Doing great boy. I feel I feel targeted by all these statistics. I’m like, Is this me? Is this me with my short attention span that we’re talking about? Is this my Amazon cart? Or how many donations have I have added? Not really not too many. I’m too good into it. But these were all all. Great, great points. Excellent. Thank you so much. That’s why. Excellent. Thank you all for attending Josh’s session. We hope you had some great takeaways. Our next session will begin at 225. And we have Mina das with centering humans in nonprofit AI and personalization, and Craig Parker from Microsoft with AI for fundraising success, how to kick off your nonprofits AI journey. No matter what session you choose, you will not miss any content. Since all sessions are recorded. We’ll see you in a bit. Bye everybody. See ya.