As the giving season approaches, it’s important for charities who want to achieve, and even increase, their year-end fundraising outcomes to have a fundraising-optimized website. Afterall, there are easy upgrades you can make to score big wins during the annual fundraising season.

In this blog, we outline actionable steps charities, especially smaller charities, can take to optimize their websites for digital fundraising in preparation for Giving Season, plus what to do if you don’t have one. By following and implementing these strategic suggestions, charities like yours can place themselves in the best position to boost their donor conversion rate (the percentage of visitors to your website who make a donation) and increase the amount of online donations raised.

Is your organization on track for giving season? Use our Fundraising Roadmap as a guide.

 

Are you a charity without a website? Start here.

Back to Basics: Charity Website 101

Let’s go back to the basics. In the digital landscape we all live in today, very few charities operate with a physical presence like a storefront. Instead, a charity’s website can be thought of as the ‘storefrontʼ or the centrepiece of your operations.

When a donor or a potential donor first learns about your organization the next logical step is typically to search for your charity online and find your website. Your website is where your audience gets a first impression of who your charity is and where they learn what your mission and purpose are.

Having an easy-to-navigate website with a consistent story woven throughout puts your charity in the best position to bring aboard new supporters, raise awareness about your cause and reach your fundraising goals.

Giving Season Playbook for Charities With a Website

For charitable organizations who currently have a website, set aside some time before November begins to perform a self-audit of the site and assess if it is efficient and effective. Your website should build visibility for your cause, help you raise more money and establish trust and credibility from a wide-ranging audience.
Features of a strong and effective charity website:

What Makes a Strong Charity Website?

Keep the following purposes top of mind, and return back to them frequently to ground your web development process and inform your vision.

A strong charity website should serve the following purposes:

  • Tells your story consistently throughout
  • Establishes credibility and trust
  • Drives engagement and awareness
  • Motivates people to donate and return to donate again

3 Website Features to Maximize Online Giving

The donate button

Installing a solid, stand-out and well-placed donate button on your website is one of the most important investments you can make as a charity to optimize your website and boost online giving.

What is a donate button?

The donate button refers to the ‘Donate Now’, ‘Give Now’ or ‘Donate Here’ icons that visitors and prospective donors encounter when they visit your charity’s website. Donate buttons convey urgency, presenting a call-to-action (CTA). A donate button is actually one of the most effective CTAs a charity can make. The donation button transfers traffic to a landing page where they can make a secure online donation.

Where should I place the donate button?

Your donate button should be accessible to visitors from every page of your website. Ideally, position it in the top-right corner of your website header or navigation bar. Anchor the button so it is ‘stuck’ (or visible) from all access points on your website.

A good rule of thumb is that donors should be able to seamlessly give to your cause in a matter of two to three clicks, from any point on your website. Keep in mind that the shorter a donor’s path to donate, the higher your donation conversion rate will be.

Pacific Salmon Foundation has a good example of a well-designed donation button.

Donate button checklist:

    • Easy to see and find – ideally placed in the top-right corner
    • ‘Stuck’ – doesn’t move out of view even while scrolling
    • Use bold colours – no blending into the background! Research shows you can increase completed donations by 30% by changing the donation button colour from grey to red
    • Clear, simple, action-oriented text – we suggest ‘donate now’ or ‘give now’
    • Big – noticeable on tablets and smartphones
    • Leave blank space and avoid crowding
    • Linked directly to donation page

A ‘Ways to Give’ Page

Creating a ‘Ways to Give’ landing page on your organization’s website gives charities a dedicated space to teach and educate prospective donors about different ways that they can support your cause.

Think of the ‘ways to give page’ as a hub outlining a menu of giving options. These options can include non-traditional avenues of supporting your cause, such as through gifts of securities, planned giving or in-kind donations. The page should empower donors to self-select the donation method that works best for them. For best results, embed your donation form to your ways to give page.

What to include in a strong ‘ways to give’ page?

      • Action-oriented language language – ‘get involved’, ‘how to support us’ etc
      • Options for accepting multiple donation types (one-time, monthly, tribute and securities donations)
      • An embedded donation form
      • Info on making tribute, memorial and/or legacy donations
      • How to make a Securities donation
      • Options for corporate giving and partnerships (matching programs, sponsorships etc)
      • How to make in-kind donations
      • Info on how to make alternative donations (cheques by mail, Interac e-transfers, gift cards, or cryptocurrency)
      • Communicate trustworthiness and credibility to donors – especially security and privacy measures

In short, a strong good ‘Ways to Give’ page explains what each donation option is, includes impact statements or testimonials and provides straightforward links or instructions about next steps.

Here’s an example of a comprehensive ‘Ways to Give’ page from Sistema Toronto.

 

The Donation Form

One of the most impactful ways your charity can drive giving is through having a simplified, seamless giving flow. The best way to achieve this is through offering donors an embedded donation form. Embedded donation forms are available to any charity with a full CanadaHelps fundraising account.

CanadaHelps embedded multi-step donation form from Katimavik.

Giving Season and GivingTuesday Donation Forms

As we head closer towards Giving Season and GivingTuesday, your charity may create urgency, distinction, and drive deeper impact by using  a special Giving Season or GivingTuesday oriented donation form.

When to use a giving season specific donation form:

  • You run a dedicated year-end fundraising campaign or GivingTuesday specific appeal
  • You intend to update your fundraising progress bar in real-time
  • You track donor conversion from your annual campaign
  • You want to test different giving season specific messaging or marketing approaches

In addition to creating a giving season specific donation form, learn about two new CanadaHelps Fundraising Tools That Can Boost Your Year-End Giving Campaign.

Giving Season Playbook for Charities Without a Website


If you are a charity who does not yet have a website – or a landing page – we recommend building out a robust CanadaHelps charity profile page as your starting point. This profile page will function as your website/online hub, and provide a searchable and secure landing page for donors to learn about your mission and make donations to your cause digitally.

How to Optimize Your Charity Profile Page

If you are a charity without the time and/or capacity to build and launch a website before the giving season begins (refer back to giving season roadmap to check timelines) we suggest directing your resources and energy towards optimizing your CanadaHelps Charity Profile Page. 

A strong charity profile page features following elements:

  • Your logo
  • An about page
  • An impact page
  • A programs or campaigns section
  • Illustrative data and statistics
  • Emotive additions like images and testimonials

Explore Contemporary Art Gallery’s charity profile page for guidance and inspiration.

For more information on the key steps charities can take to optimize their CanadaHelps charity profile page, explore this article on The Benefits of Creating a Charity Profile and Impact Page.

 

Next Steps

Using the tips outlined above, your charity has the knowledge to optimize your website in order to maximize fundraising outcomes across giving season, GivingTuesday and beyond!

For more tips and tricks on how to optimize year-end your website, and deeper learning on end-of-year fundraising, dive into our ebook featuring an End-of-Year Campaign Guide.

For more step-by-step giving season guidance, resources, and inspiration from other charities that have walked the same steps, visit CanadaHelps ultimate Giving Season resource hub.