Tips to Encourage Donations

According to PitcherGroup.com, charities have a variety of “proven money earning techniques” they can employ to encourage donations. Some of the most successful strategies include a mix of traditional and web-oriented techniques. Among these techniques are:

• Include personal stories
• Communicate benefit to donor
• Use personal appeals (i,e, have a person ask on behalf of the organization instead of organization as a whole)
• Establish a sense of urgency
• Include testimonials/supportive comments
• Provide donation/gifting options, details of goals and fundraising totals
• Have multiple donation buttons and calls to action
• Provide project updates

In addition, Network for Good notes that there are ten things that a charity’s home page should have in order to quickly capture the interest and attention of potential donors. Some of these components are a “two-second statement” about who the charity is and what it does; a clear, intuitive, easy to navigate website;  a case that demonstrates what makes the charity different, unique, and/or appealing to support; a way for potential donors to sign up for more information; links to social media feeds; and information about upcoming events and other opportunities for engagement.

Source: http://saturdayplace.org/rashied-and-dianna-davis/

With all of these great tips in mind, I recommend that you take a look at the Saturday Place website to see just how well the charity has gone about incorporating several of these elements. The Saturday Place homepage is presented in a simple, easy to navigate format with links to upcoming events and general information about the charity and the charity’s mission. The home page also contains motivating quotes and heart-warming pictures of children with links to information about partners, current projects, and the “man behind the place”. The only thing I would say detracts from the Saturday Place website (as per the “best practices” suggested above) is the understated “donate” button. However, the organization provides multiple options to “get involved” and allows potential donors to “meet our students”. The "meet our students" pages provides  testimonials and infographics that display how the charity’s efforts have help to improve academic performance (one of the main goals of the organization). 

- Olivia Blundell