Boosting Donation Page Performance with New Giving Options

July 2, 2024

1. Explore the benefits of various giving options.

Expanding your donation options offers plenty of benefits for your nonprofit—just accepting noncash asset gifts in addition to cash can help you raise 55% more. But it’s important to consider the benefits for donors, as well.

Each donation type comes with unique benefits that may appeal more to certain groups of donors. For instance, recurring giving makes it easy for donors on a budget to give larger amounts over time, while certain noncash donations come with additional tax benefits for high-capacity donors.

As you explore your options, put yourself in donors’ shoes and think about why certain subsets of donors might want to donate:

Stocks

According to Infinite Giving’s stock donation guide, the biggest reasons nonprofits accept stock gifts are that they’re tax-efficient for donors, presenting immense giving potential. The average stock gift is around $8,000, making stocks a high-impact option to add to your donation page.

Another benefit of accepting stock donations is that you can liquidate them immediately and not have to worry about the risks of stocks changing in value. After liquidation, you can also choose to reinvest them into a more diversified, low-risk portfolio with the help of a nonprofit investing advisor to give them the potential to grow.

Cryptocurrency

The crypto market continues to grow globally, so it’s likely that some of your existing donors own crypto and would be excited to donate it to your organization if they had the option. For donors, giving crypto offers a few key benefits:

• If the crypto appreciates in value, donors can give more to your nonprofit than they originally spent on the crypto.
• Donating cryptocurrency allows individuals to avoid paying capital gains tax on the appreciation.
• Crypto donors can receive tax deductions based on their gift’s fair market value at the time of donation.

Plus, you can convert the crypto to cash immediately when you receive it to avoid market volatility. Donors get the benefits associated with donating cryptocurrency, while your organization ultimately receives a cash donation you can easily put to use.

DAF Grants

Donor advised funds (DAFs) are a popular way for wealthy donors to give consistently throughout their lives. Essentially, a donor opens a charitable giving account with a DAF provider, adds funding, allows it to grow, and then suggests giving grants to certain nonprofits or causes.

Donors can claim tax deductions any time they add to the fund, and it helps them give to a variety of organizations over time. By making it easy for donors to request DAF grants for your nonprofit, you’ll encourage DAF-holders to give more often.

Matching Gifts

Corporate matching gift programs allow donors to multiply their gifts’ impact without using more of their own funds. All eligible donors have to do is make a cash donation on your giving page and request a matching gift from their employer. Then, based on the employer’s program guidelines, your nonprofit could receive double or even triple the original gift amount.

These programs also benefit the companies that provide them, making it a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.

2. Determine which giving methods you can realistically accept.

Once you’ve evaluated the benefits of multiple new giving options, take stock of your resources, budget, and financial expertise to determine which donation methods are realistic for your organization to accept. Ask yourself questions like:

• Do you have the budget for a specialized tool to help you accept noncash gifts?
• Does your nonprofit have a brokerage account or crypto wallet already? 
• Does your CMS or donation page provider support additional giving methods?
• Do your existing donors have the means to give these types of gifts?
• Have any donors expressed interest in noncash giving in the past?
• Are your staff members familiar with stocks, DAFs, or cryptocurrencies?

If your team doesn’t have extensive knowledge about noncash giving methods, don’t fret. For many nonprofits, the best option is to leverage intuitive stock or crypto giving tools that simplify the giving process for multiple types of noncash donations—making noncash giving easy for both you and your donors.

These tools help you accept cryptocurrency, stocks, DAF grants, and more right from your donation page. Some solutions can even automatically convert gifts to cash and send donors their tax receipts, eliminating complex transfers for your nonprofit.

3. Update your donation page and Ways to Give page.

Next, it’s time to update your website and highlight your new giving options! This is a good opportunity to redesign your donation page to make it more user-friendly, mobile-optimized, and visually appealing. Take inspiration from resources like OneCause’s list of the best donation page examples to see how other nonprofits approach design and discuss their giving options.

Whether you edit your existing form or completely redesign your donation page, make sure to add brief information about what noncash donations are and include links to pages where interested donors can learn more.

Then, don’t forget to update your Ways to Give page along with any other pages that mention giving options. For instance, you might add a new section on your planned giving page that suggests DAF grants or endowment gifts as an alternative for those who want to give more during their lifetimes. Add mentions of your new giving options throughout relevant pages and blog posts on your website to give users more opportunities to learn about them.

4. Monitor your new giving page’s performance.

After updating your website, make plans to track key metrics so you can analyze changes in your donation page’s performance. Use Google Analytics, your donor database, or your CMS’s built-in analytics tools to track metrics like:

• Your donation page’s conversion rate
• Donation page traffic sources
• The average gift size for each new giving option
• The number of new donors acquired through your optimized donation page

On an individual level, be sure to record donors’ new giving habits and interests in your database so you can tailor future appeals and outreach. If a mid-level donor makes a stock donation, for example, add that information to their donor profile and mention stock gifts in recognition emails and fundraising appeals.

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When you add giving options that appeal to your donors’ unique interests, you can better engage supporters and help them make more of a difference on your mission. To continue appealing to donors, request their feedback on your donation page periodically and implement any necessary changes to improve the giving experience.