4 Ways to Optimize Your Nonprofit’s Donation Landing Pages

Filling out the form on your nonprofit’s donation landing page is the last step a supporter takes in making a gift to your organization. Any bumps they encounter there may cause them to abandon the donation process. Luckily, your organization can prevent these issues by optimizing its donation pages to help supporters follow through.

A landing page that simplifies the donation process also helps your nonprofit get more out of every email appeal, social media post, and text message that sends visitors your way. In this guide, we’ll cover four ways to improve your donation pages and make giving a smooth experience for every supporter.

1. Match your page’s branding to the rest of your website.

When a supporter reaches your landing page, it should be clear that it belongs to your organization. Visitors must be sure your page is legitimate to feel comfortable submitting payment information. Your page should have the same basic web design elements as the rest of your site’s pages to assure supporters that it comes from your organization, not an impersonator.

To create a sense of continuity, use the same colors, fonts, and logo placement that appear across your website. If you regularly create landing pages for different campaigns, keep an updated brand style guide on hand for reference. Beyond visual style, ensure that your donation page lives on your domain or a subdomain that is clearly connected to your organization. This way, supporters don’t have to worry about an unusual URL.

Your consistency should also carry into your messaging and imagery. For instance, if your email appeal features a photo of a student in your tutoring program and a $10,000 fundraising goal, your landing page should show the same photo and the same goal. Including familiar details lets supporters know that they’re in the right place and helps your organization reinforce each campaign’s narrative.

2. Make it easier to donate.

As you optimize your organization’s donation landing page, prioritize simplicity. A good place to start is with the form itself. Since too many extra fields can deter supporters, determine what information is absolutely necessary to process a gift, and pare down your form accordingly. From there, you can approach any additional questions or optional fields with a better sense of how they make donating easier.

To streamline the giving process even further, consider these options:

• Default amounts. Donors aren’t always sure how much to give, which can stall their decision to follow through. To make things easier, offer three or four preset gift levels and pair each with a short description of what it accomplishes. For example, a message like “$50 buys a week of school supplies for one student” can help supporters better picture their impact on your beneficiaries. Choose your defaults carefully, and try A/B testing different amounts to refine the best number for your campaign.
• A variety of payment options. Different supporters prefer to give in different ways, so consider accepting a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, digital wallets, and bank transfers. You may also want to accept stocks and gifts from donor-advised funds, which many major donors use to manage their charitable giving.
• Recurring gifts. Add a monthly giving checkbox or toggle for supporters who want to help sustain your work over time. Recurring giving provides your team with more predictable revenue to plan around and enables donors to contribute on a regular basis without manually donating each month.

A simpler giving experience allows supporters to act on their generosity right away, helping your organization start off on the right foot with new donors and build the foundation for strong supporter relationships.

3. Create accessible, mobile-friendly forms.

Any person using any device should be able to support your organization. Whether a visitor is navigating your donation page on a desktop with a screen reader or on a smartphone, they should have an easy time learning about your campaign and making a gift. Making your forms accessible and mobile-friendly allows you to include all of your supporters and reach visitors on the go.

To create an accessible experience, consider how a visitor would navigate your form using a keyboard or a screen reader. Ensure that visitors can complete the entire form using only the Tab and Enter keys, rather than restricting access to visitors who use a mouse. For those using screen readers, add descriptive alt text for any images you include. Additional accessibility measures include creating a strong contrast between text and its background and adding clear labels to each field instead of using placeholder text alone.

Mobile-specific adjustments can make it more comfortable to give from a smaller screen. Use a single-column layout to help visitors navigate the site without excessive pinching and zooming, and ensure that any buttons are large enough to tap easily with a thumb. To make the form even easier to complete on mobile devices, enable autofill for various fields and accept payments from digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

4. Secure your payment portals and integrations.

Supporters share personal and financial information when they give, and it is important to honor their trust in your organization. As you create better donation landing pages, refine your nonprofit’s cybersecurity efforts to safeguard sensitive data from online scammers and malicious bots.

Focus on the following areas to help protect your supporters:

• Your payment processor. Choose a PCI-compliant processor that meets the security standards set by major credit card companies. Keep your donation page software and plugins up to date, and use two-factor authentication on every staff account that can view or change payment settings.
• CRM integrations. When your forms integrate with your CRM, donor information automatically flows between your site and the other systems your team uses. Confirm that this transfer happens over an encrypted connection and that staff members can access only the donor records they need to keep sensitive information protected after it leaves your form.
• Card testing prevention. Card testing occurs when bots use your form to test lists of stolen card numbers, typically via small donations. To prevent this issue, either use an embedded donation form with built-in protections against abuse or add an invisible “honeypot” feature to your form to capture automated submissions, limit the number of donation attempts a visitor can make within a short window, and monitor your CRM for sudden bursts of small gifts.

Working out the details behind the scenes of your donation form contributes to a more positive experience for your visitors and ensures that your organization actually receives the gifts it raises through its campaign.

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From consistent branding and simple, accessible forms to secure payment tools, your donation page should make the giving process simple and enjoyable. To identify areas for improvement on your next campaign’s landing page, put yourself in a first-time donor’s shoes as you navigate the form. Streamline the experience wherever possible to help turn visitors’ interest into long-lasting support.