Online fundraising depends on several things, but few things are as important as building trust. That’s why branding your donation pages is a must. Here’s how to do it.
At first, you might think that the ability to customize your RaiseDonors donation pages with your unique nonprofit branding, colors, and other brand design elements is merely aesthetic.
In a way, you’re right. We do believe in the power of beauty to inspire and motivate.
Going to our local art museum or botanical gardens moves us in profound ways.
However, the flexibility of RaiseDonors allows you to create donor experiences that communicate your voice and reflect what sets you apart from start to finish.
And with over 1.5 million nonprofits in the U.S. (and counting), you’ve got to find ways to stand out!
Brand consistency is key
Communicating with a consistent voice across all of your web pages through your copy and graphic elements is critical to establishing trust with your donors.
Trust comes when I know that you’re communicating with me in a way that’s authentic to you.
You don’t talk in one way to me today and then another way tomorrow.
Your voice is only consistent when it comes from who you are and not who you’re trying to be.
No one fully trusts a person who doesn’t know who they are, or worse, wants to be someone else.
They’re not authentic. Therefore, they’re not trustworthy.
It’s not that they’re bad. It’s just that you know intuitively that there’s something wrong.
Of course, this life principle translates to corporate and nonprofit brands.
Each web page—especially donation pages—needs to speak with the same voice. They need to have the same look and feel, which encourages trust in the donor.
Your nonprofit brand is authentic to you, born out of a deep introspective look at who you are.
Communicating authentically to your donor shouldn’t stop when they get to your donation page!
A cautionary tale
Imagine you’re at the mall.
There’s a store you’ve never seen before, but looking through the windows outside and reading the name of the store, you’re convinced to give it a go.
You enter the store.
And you love it!
You find all the latest items and accessories for which you’ve been looking for quite some time – and all at really good prices!
The staff are friendly and really know what they’re doing.
They help you navigate the store showing you all the best they have to offer.
You enjoy hearing the stories they tell of how the products were made, where they come from, and why they were created in the first place.
In the end, you can’t wait to get your items home!
You’ve got a new favorite store brand, and you can’t wait to show everyone your new stuff.
So you gather up your new merchandise and head to the front to make your purchase.
When you get there, you’re confused. You’re not supposed to pay here.
You’ve got to leave the store and go to another location to make your purchase.
The friendly and helpful staff place your items in a cart, and they lead you to the other location.
To your chagrin, it’s on the other side of the mall.
You look up at the sign on the location, and it has a different name altogether than the one you just came from.
Furthermore, your helpful, enthusiastic companions have disappeared.
Now you have to get to know the sour-faced guy across the counter who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else but with you.
He asks you all kinds of questions and doesn’t tell you why he needs to know.
Before you can purchase your items, he wants your phone number, your street address, and the reason for why you came to their store in the first place.
Suddenly, all your good feelings are flying away.
This is NOT the store you went into in the first place. You don’t trust this man, and you don’t like his questions.
Where’s the friendly staff? Where’s the beautiful arrangements and smiles?
In frustration, you tell the guy to forget it. And you leave.
Avoid abandoned online gifts
This story illustrates the jolting feeling a donor gets when they go from your branded web pages to a generic donation page.
First of all, they notice that the URL has changed. They’re not paying in your store. They’re paying in someone else’s store.
Then, they notice that your sign is nowhere to be seen. The branding has completely changed.
The font is different. Colors are different. The giving form looks like a 90’s computer system.
It asks all kinds of intimate questions when all you wanted to do was give $25 because you wanted to show them how much you enjoyed what they’re doing in the world.
This jolting feeling, this bait-and-switch, quite often results in abandoned online gifts.
The donor comes planning to give, but is jolted out of the donor journey because the voice changed.
Avoid abandoned gifts by keeping your voice consistent on your donation pages.
This is why the ability to customize your donation pages is crucial to online fundraising.
Donors don’t want to give to RaiseDonors – they want to give to you!
They want to give to the cause they saw on your website or in your email.
When they come to your donation page, we want them to feel as though they’ve just landed on another page of your website.
Same font. Same logo. Some colors. Same amazing storytelling.
Consistent, authentic branding from start to finish is key to online fundraising success.
With RaiseDonors, you can provide your donors a giving experience that makes them feel inspired and secure.
And by using RaiseDonors white label donation pages, you can avoid abandoned gifts. Thereby raising more donors and more funds.
