How to Get Your Charity Website Ready for Holiday Giving
Black Friday. Small Business Saturday. Cyber Monday and finally #GIVINGTUESDAY, the start of the non-profit holiday giving season. If you are JUST NOW thinking and looking at your website, wondering if its ready and captivating enough to collect that extra $$ mulah $$ then this post is for you!
Check out my quick solutions to get you “GOAL BUSTING” in time for the Yule log.
#1 Add a custom holiday page
Do you have a TON of holiday events with toy drives, donation collection, fundraising events etc? Don’t let the excitement of the season get in the way of your message and let your asks get confused. Put all of your holiday happenings in one place on your website, one page, and organize it chronologically. This will make it easy to update once the event is complete and show donors, volunteers and merriment crashers where and when your next event is happening. This tip ties into #2 but messaging and keeping things simple is so important.
#2 Make your holiday $$ ask simple
Are you collecting donations for 5+ things? Make it simple. Make the messaging simple. “Share Holiday Joy - Donate Today” “Forever Homes for Furry Hearts - Donate to Holiday Fund NOW”. Worry about designations and all of the bits later. Consider a simple #Hashtag or theme to encompass the whole holiday season then allow the events and happenings to revolve around it all. BONUS to hire a designer like “moi” to help you with these special events and designs. BOOK ME NOW WITH AN INSTANT SERVICE where you literally select your due date and I deliver.. every time.
#3 Add a popup
Squarespace has a banging and awesome internal popup marketing tool that can help promote a special holiday event or fund that you are collecting for. Make sure to use it at this time. Often times people are looking at this time of year for a place to donate, either out of tradition, tax obligations, as a gift to a loved one or genuine human kindness. Either way, make it “STUPID SIMPLE” with a pop up once they come to your website for them to find your donation page. Popups do this and are not as annoying when utilized at the right time. DON’T HAVE SQUARESPACE or are you already using your allotted internal popup? I enjoy WISEPOPS for an additional Squarespace solution (though be careful they will try the upsell) and SUMO for wordpress because its FREE. But for the record, again, switch to Squarespace. Just do it.
#4 Utilize your announcement bar
Again, another native and internal feature on ALL Squarespace sites, the announcement bar. Use this to link to your holiday happenings page or any other important content. Add emojis to create visual interest. Make sure to be culturally and religiously inclusive if it aligns with your brand and cause. Using words like “HOLIDAYS” etc.
#5 Get NONPROFIT Verified with Facebook (META)
#GivingTuesday. Its no secret that Facebook (META) will match gifts, doubling your donations. Make sure its easy for followers and champions of your cause to create those easy FB peer to peer fundraising pages. Donors love to do these for Birthday’s etc so they are not just useful for GivingTuesday. Here are the steps to get non profit verified by FB. Keep in mind this step can take a while so you should ideally, already have this complete. But if not, get started for next year and collect all of those great peer to peer birthday fundraisers!
#6 Change your donation “impact statements”
If your donation form allows “IMPACT STATEMENTS” next to donation amounts, use them! Update them with holiday needs and make sure your donation form is optimized with asking donors to cover the transaction fees, allowing tributes/in memory/honor gifts and recurring gifts. DONORBOX does this wonderfully. Make sure to sign up for them if you haven’t already!