Latest / The Nonprofit Podcast / Ep 173| 3 Donation Form Hacks To Get More Donations

Transcript

Ep 173| 3 Donation Form Hacks To Get More Donations · The Nonprofit Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Burnout.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: That juggling too many things, running on empty feeling, could actually be your fundraising secret weapon.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, almost nine out of 10 nonprofit leaders I talk to feel like they're juggling flaming torches just to keep things from crashing.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: And donors, they're noticing it too.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're tired of random ask and they want their giving to have a lasting impact.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're done chasing last-minute donations, I've got three burnout-proof tweaks to your donation form that will quietly turn donors into loyal lifetime supporters without wiping you out.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's fundraise smarter, not harder this year end.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: The Nonprofit Podcast, powered by DonorBox.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Britt Stockert, fundraising coach at DonorBox.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Each week we share practical information, clear insights, and inspiration to help you raise more, reach further, and drive real results to take your nonprofit to the next level.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Today is my monthly coaching recap for August.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sharing the biggest themes that I've heard from fundraisers like you, plus some quick wins you can try right now.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the line that I keep hearing in many of my coaching sessions.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Britt, hey, I know donor relationships matter, but I'm just trying to keep our program sustaining and operating.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, same.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I read a headline, it was the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it made me bittersweet laugh out loud.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: The headline was this we made it through COVID.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Are we really doing this again?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, yeah, we're we are.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're still here, right?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're still burning the candle at both ends.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And from this report, it isn't just a few people.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's nearly 90% of nonprofit leaders.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it, not much has changed.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's only gotten worse, right?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: More demand, tighter budgets, smaller teams, more pressure to do more with less.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: No wonder we're all wiped out.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And for fundraising, that means that we're stuck in survival mode.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Campaigns get reactive, our donor follow-up slip, that ethical storytelling project we promised to prioritize and commit to in 2025 gets lost.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And donors are feeling it too.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: They don't get the full picture.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Urgent needs and long-term change, they don't they cannot connect the dots because, as nonprofits, we're always putting out fires.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of waiting for burnout to vanish, what if we got real and we built small systems now that will lighten our load later?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where something as seemingly small as your donation form comes into play.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk about it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's three things.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: One, the biggest misconception about donation forms.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Two, a burnout-proof revenue boosting trio.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you three tips that you can implement right now.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And three simple follow-up strategies built for nonprofits out there with small teams that's gonna keep your energy up instead of draining it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so let's kick off with something most of us get wrong about donation forms.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just a box to process payments, and treating it like one might be quietly costing you donor relationships and a lot of money.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And hey, I don't blame y'all because what do you do as nonprofits?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: You set up your donation forms, bing, bing, boom, done.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then even as a donor, we kind of treat it like we're logging in to pay a utility bill, not like we're joining a movement, right?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Most donation forms weren't built with people in mind.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: They were designed for transactions.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll take it even further, they weren't even built by fundraisers.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's such a missed opportunity because here's the thing giving is vulnerable.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's something very subliminal, subconscious, emotional beneath the surface that is happening that donors themselves don't even say out loud or may not even be cognizant of.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Something really quiet but powerful happens the moment someone goes to that donation forum and hits give.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned this years ago.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have been following a friend, his name is Fars.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: I have consent.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: He is a speech therapist for kids.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: He is a big human rights advocate.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's the oldest brother of 13 in his family.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been following his writings for a long time.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: When his country situation got so bad, I thought, oh my goodness, I can't just sit back and watch anymore.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: I need to do something.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went to his donation form, and right at the top, that form asked one question.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: What inspired you to give to my family today?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't expecting to be placed into the picture at all.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it kind of made me put myself front and center.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I shared something in that moment deeply personal, and it made me pause.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote that I'm a 9-11 veteran.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm what's uh what's called a veteran for peace now, and two decades later, I see the world differently than I did back then.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: What moved me most FARS was your humanity.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that one question, honestly, it turned a transaction into a friendship where I've been a mutual aid organizer for the last two years.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And together we raised$60,000 to evacuate his mom and little brother.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: The reason I'm sharing this is because one intentional question can do that.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: It can open up a world of possibilities and build a long-standing deep relationship that you really want with your donors, but what donation forms completely miss.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: But there's good news.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: There are three small but powerful tweaks I'm gonna share right now that you can make today to turn one-time gifts into lifetime supporters.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, ask why they give.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Most forms don't.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: We just talked about it, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: What most forms do is they track what we fundraisers call RFM, recency, frequency, monetary value, all the things related to the transaction itself, but that only tells you what happened, not why.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what we need to be collecting are the psychographics, what moves your donor, what do they value, what motivates them?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: What is their lived experience?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Those things are pure gold.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the intel, it's the glue, it's a magic sauce that's going to give you what you need to do those powerful personalized touch points.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, one way to remedy this right now on your donation form is to add a simple question.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: What inspired you to give today?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I challenge you, watch what happens.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you one example real quick.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: At a diaper bank, I led, I knew this early on.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had that simple question on our donation form.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember one donor wrote, Hey, I gave because I was just released from the hospital after giving birth.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're living in our van off of 84th with our newborn.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: We have no money, we have no diapers.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you bet, what did we do?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as we saw that automated donation confirmation coming into our inbox, within 24 hours, our team delivered a month's supply of diapers to their van.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you, the mama was shook because she didn't think anyone would have paid attention to that one seemingly small note that she left on that donation form.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: That question, intentional design, it didn't just benefit our fundraising team.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: It activated our program team to step in as well and build trust.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, give donors a choice.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we talked about donor fatigue.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Fatigue, fatigue, fatigue.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I get it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one way to cut through all of that negative noise is to give people agency.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let them choose where they want their gift to go.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just down the street from a fabulous nonprofit, Fairfax Behavioral Health.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: They run three amazing programs: teen therapy groups, adult peer support, 24-7 crisis line.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine if their donation form let donors pick exactly which program to support, or even have a fourth default to general funds.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you, if you've ever called their crisis line, when you see that you have the autonomy, the agency to direct your gift specifically to that program, your gift means so much more because it's personal.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: You see yourself in giving because you have directly benefited from that crisis line.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: You want to carry your gift forward to be able to help others.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, hey, I know that not every nonprofit can track designated gifts yet.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: You may not have the financial systems, the reporting in place.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: But hey, if you can, that's when you gather meaningful data to build those long-term relationships.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: All right, number three, showcase monthly giving.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, monthly giving, it isn't just good for your budget, it's actually better for your donors too.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: It turns giving into a relationship.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're all about connection, right?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of that one off transaction.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've already got a solid base of repeat donors, and how I define repeat donors are donors that have given multiple times recently and a solid monthly giving program in place where you're they're not just gonna sit there, but you're gonna nurture them.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the move that I suggest to you.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Make monthly giving the default on your donation form right now.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Most donation forms have this setting.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: You just need to enable it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the coolest thing, some donation forms like donor box, even have features that will gently prompt donors, repeat one-time donors, to sign up to monthly giving.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Totally not pushy, just a little nudge in the right direction.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And one final thing I want to say here, which I see happens so many times with my coaching clients and their monthly giving programs, is donors want to see the specific, tangible outcomes of where their donations go.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're setting up your monthly giving donation form, don't just leave it at the donation tier amounts itself.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: You really want to tie a$20 a month gift to a very tangible, specific outcome.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: What lands is when you connect it to something real.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about building trust.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So monthly giving, it's obvious.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's an easy choice, and you tie it back to real human impact and you're gonna raise more money.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you've updated your form.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now what?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Follow up.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a pattern I see all the time.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Nonprofits, they put everything into the planning phase of their year-end campaign.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: The big campaign ends, and then silence, no follow-up.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, I get it because everything we've been taught about how we communicate with our donors, a minimum of seven touch points, the old school drip campaign, it's starting to feel stale.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And keeping up with the changing platforms and donor preferences is exhausting.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, two things here follow-up is where the opportunity is.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you turn a one-time gift into an ongoing relationship.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: The second part of that is the rhythm.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Think about microengagements that are highly personalized, not canned, and are inviting your donors in meaningful ways.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you still want to start with a genuine thank you, not the general email everyone deletes, but something that reflects their story, and you want to tie that specific donation amount to a tangible, specific outcome.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Then you want to share real moments from your work.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Forget all of those long impact stories or fancy videos.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: All you really need is just a powerful personalized, humanized snapshot.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: It could even be a two-sentence story or a 20-second voice note.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Invite them to connect in ways beyond just giving money.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: It might be sign a petition.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: It might be an invite to pop by with a friend or volunteer at an event.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And here is the simplest hack in your rhythm that I'm talking about.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ask how they want to hear from you.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Put it on your thank you page or in that first follow-up.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, we all need to be about meeting donors where they are at.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to save you time.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's all about building connection and relationship.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Follow-up doesn't have to mean more work.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: If it's done right, it means better work for everyone.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm thinking about it.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Burnout isn't just about donors or leaders.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's about you too, dear listener.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: The nonprofits that are really going to nail it in 2026 and beyond are the ones that protect staff well-being and build sustainable systems.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: So there you have it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Your burnout-proof fundraising playbook for year end.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a recap: add heart to your donation form with that one simple question.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Give donors agency.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Make monthly giving the next easy step, and keep your follow-up simple, personal, and sustainable.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you didn't know, DonorBox offers coaching through our premium package.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Each week I meet with amazing orgs like Raising Special Kids, New College Berkeley, Bob Miser Foundation, and so many more to tackle challenges just like the ones we're talking about right now on burnout and sustainable fundraising.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here to help you if you need it.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for being part of the nonprofit podcast community.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Your work matters, and we're honored to support it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you've enjoyed this episode, share it, leave a review, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, take that first step and stay inspired.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: That warm feeling when you help someone, it's not just happiness, it's fulfillment.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we believe it should be available to everyone, from frontline heroes to first time fundraisers.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Our tools empower you to help others.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is our mission.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is DonorBox, helping you help others.