Online fundraising has become the bread and butter for nonprofit organizations around the world. It garners millions in charitable giving for the nonprofit industry every year. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that more and more organizations are looking to step up their online fundraising game.
However, with so many options out there, it can be difficult to find the right online donation tools for your organization. Whether your nonprofit is just starting out or is already established, or somewhere in between, choosing an online fundraising platform is something that deserves some thought.
Online fundraising lets donors give easily and frequently and it keeps their information secure. It also lets nonprofits collect donations from anywhere, capture more donor information, increase their brand awareness, and raise funds cost-effectively. Win-win!
My Pick
My top pick for an online donation management software is Donorbox.
Donorbox is a powerful fundraising software that is very simple and fast to set up. You can start fundraising with a fast, optimized donation payment system in 15 minutes. Over 7,000 organizations from 25 countries use the Donorbox fundraising software. Donorbox is specifically designed to encourage recurring donations. Organizations can seamlessly embed a custom form to their website or use a popup widget.
This effective fundraising software offers many impressive features. Here are our favorite 10:
1. Free
Donorbox is free if you get less than $1k in donations in a month. There are no setup costs. If you reach $1k in a month, Donorbox charges a small platform fee of 0.89% for the month’s donations. Other donation platforms charge 2-5% or more. This makes Donorbox ideal for nonprofits just starting out or looking to cut costs.
2. Recurring Donations
Recurring giving programs provide a reliable source of income for nonprofits. Donorbox enables organizations to accept monthly recurring donations. Donorbox is optimized for recurring donations with its simple and effective checkout. Donorbox also offers the fundraising thermometer feature, which in combination with the recurring donations increases the number of donations.
3. Easily Integrated
Donorbox offer plug and play plugins for WordPress, Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace. On the Donorbox Nonprofit blog, you can find comprehensive guides for these and other platforms. This means you get a no-hassle experience when integrating Donorbox with your already existing website. Donorbox forms are also customizable. Choosing the color scheme, design style, branding, and logo makes your website feel more cohesive and trustworthy.
4. New Gen Payments
Donorbox not only accepts donations in multiple currencies (USD, EUR, CAD, GBP, AUD, plus more) but has also recently introduced ApplePay and Google Pay as payment options. This helps make payments simple and fast. Research shows donors are turned off by payment-related issues. In today’s day and age, you want to offer as many payment options as possible to your donors.
5. Secure
When choosing a donation software, security is evidently an important feature. Donorbox is secured by SSL/TLS. Credit card information is encrypted, tokenized, and safely stored with the Stripe payment processor.Donorbox also does not store any card or bank data.
6. Simple Donation Forms
Donorbox featuresa straightforward online fundraising form. Simple, minimalist, and visually appealing donation forms tend to increase your donation page conversion rates (the percentage of people who visit the donation page and complete the donation process). This is because donors can focus on the process of giving itself, instead of getting distracted.
7. Company Matching Search
Double the Donation company matching integration enables donors to search for their employer’s gift matching policies during the checkout. Not only does Donorbox enable donors to search through matching policies during the checkout, but also on your own website with a company matching embed code.
8. Suggested Donation Amounts
Offering different giving levels allows donors to choose how much they are willing to give.
Different giving levels can increase the average size of donors’ contributions over time. You can also tie in descriptions to suggested donation amounts (e.g. $15 dollars will pay one week worth of meals for a family in Myanmar). This lets donors visualise the impact of their donations, which increases the chances of them donating.
9. Donor Management
Donorbox enables your organization to have a comprehensive overview of donor profiles with a summary of the donor’s contributions and amount donated, as well as a list of all of their donations. You can also track their total yearly contributions, which can come in handy for tax reporting purposes.
10. Embeddable Donor Wall
An embeddable donor wall gives your donors the option to showcase their donation on a public ‘wall’ (stating names and surnames of contributors).If a donor selects this option, their donation information and their comment will be displayed on your hosted donorbox.org/campaign page. Public donor recognition encourages existing donors to keep giving and it motivates new donors to give.
Donorbox also offers a number of other features:
– Donorbox support team is always prompt to respond and provide helpful answers to your questions and queries;
– It integrates with Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack;
– You can acceptdonations on your Facebook Page;
– Optimized for desktop, mobile phones, and tablets;
– Popup donation form available;
– Donation tracking code & PDF invoices available;
– Donors have full control over their monthly recurring donations;
– You can export your donor data as csv and auto-export your donor data to MailChimp and Salesforce NPSP;
– PDF receipts, filtering recurring donations, and converting different currencies available.
These are only some of the additional features Donorbox offers. Visit their website to learn more.
Conclusion
Nonprofit professionals rarely lack the vision, ideas, or enthusiasm. The challenge is almost always to come up with sufficient funds to safeguard the nonprofit’s financial vitality while working toward a progressive and stable future and an inspiring mission.
Although online fundraising has almost become a norm in the world of fundraising, the pace of technological development leaves many nonprofits unequipped to face the challenges of digital fundraising.
Platforms like Donorbox offering features such as ApplePay and Google Pay, enabling the embeddable donor wall and company matching search, and launching the fundraising thermometer, allow nonprofits to simplify their digital fundraising and get the most out of it.
