How to perfect the donor journey

What is Access Workspace for Charities?

 

 

The idea is that, with the right stewardship from the charity they support, your prospects go onto to become a first-time donor, then a repeated donor, a regular donors, a major donor, and finally, a legacy donor.  

 

But it’s not a concrete system – it’s possible for people to start at different stages, and possibly repeat stages over and over. More importantly for this article, people can disengage too, if their journey is not looked after effectively.  

 

It’s very important that charities manage the donor journey from start to finish. Every step matters, from making that first donation easy to thanking them for it once it has been made.  

 

Research shows that donors are 400% more likely to give again if thanked with 48 hours of giving, while nearly seven in ten donors say understanding the impact their money has made is important to them. Where possible, automating next steps makes sure your donors are segmented and nurtured by triggering personalised journeys based on their individual interactions. 

 

Here, we outline the tools that can help charities govern each stage of the donor journey and hopefully increase their donations in the future.

 

 

Google Ad Grants 

 

Google Ad Grants provide eligible charity and non-profit organisations with more than £7,500 of free advertising on Google searches every month. This means that when your supporters are still at the prospective stage, you can boost your visibility to them at times when they are searching for words and topics related to your cause and attract them to your charity.

 

Through Google Ad Grants, charities have been able to drive traffic to their website at an opportune time. Recipients of Ad Grants in the past have been able to increase their website traffic increase by more than 500% and have seen their monthly donation income rise by over 800%. 

 

However, applying for a Google Ad Grant can be a complicated process. First, you need to check out the eligibility guidelines – registered charities in the UK are eligible, along with any organisation that has charitable exemption status from HMRC, the UK Government’s tax body.  

 

You also need to be able to manage your Google Ad Grants, in order to keep receiving them. This means adhering to Google’s ongoing programme policies, which include the maintenance of your webite and high quality of ads. 

 

The process is well worth starting though, especially if courting new donors. Afghanaid, a humanitarian charity focusing on helping people in Afghanistan, managed to double its donations to its Crisis Appeal during an intensely difficult time, just by being visible at a time when people were searching its cause.

 

 

Website 

 

Maintaining your website is an important part of the conversion stage of the donor journey. At the very least, if you have an Ad Grant, it helps you retain it. But once people have clicked to visit your site, it’s important that you’re able to keep them there.  

 

This is the next step in the process of taking people from prospective supporters to first-time converters, regardless of the actions they take. Where possible you want to give them various options to convert – not just donation requests. Newsletter subscriptions are a great way to get someone into your donor journey that isn’t quite ready to make a financial contribution.  

 

If your website is not easy to use, then your supporters are less likely to stay on it and even less likely to return to support you in the future. According to research, the average site visitor spends just 15 seconds on a website, so charities only have limited time to make their case. 

 

It is vital that your site is fit for purpose, whether that is to inform and educate or to fundraise (or, most likely, both). It should be easy to navigate and your audience should ideally be able to access it on any device. Text should be legible and content should be accessible for all – an especially important consideration for charities given the breadth of people they interact with and serve.  

 

Ease of navigation is particularly important when it comes to driving donations. If getting from A to B on your site contains multiple unnecessary steps, you’ll lose people along the way. The donate button should be hyper visible on your home page and the most important numbers pertaining to your impact should be easy to find too – let people know without asking the difference their support will make.  

 

Getting your website right can ultimately pay dividends in the future – if it’s simple to donate the first time, supporters may well return to do so again. 

 

 

CRM 

 

Now you’ve had your first conversion from a supporter – the next step is engaging them. This covers everything from thanking them for that initial sign up or donation (if they’ve consented to further communications, of course) to informing them of the impact their support can bring. 

 

A good CRM system can help you shape the rest of their journey once donors have given you their details. By housing all your fundraising data in one place, it gives you a complete picture of all your donors at whichever stage of the journey they’re on.  

 

This means you can tailor how you interact with them accordingly. With Access Charty CRM a powerful Donor Journey dashboard allows you to visualise how many supporters are at which stage on their journey with you.  

 

For example, you can tailor your communications by area to only target those within a certain number of miles from an upcoming event. Or search by donor attribution tags to target those with particular interests. But be careful how often you do so – a CRM system can be about reducing unnecessary communications as well as improving them, and what you do send will be more effective.  

 

If donors are on a journey, then a CRM system is the signpost. They likely already support your cause – how you engage with them next determines where they go in the future. 

 

Helping your supporters go from clicking on a link to your site to donating regularly is no mean feat. But the process can be mastered.  

 

There are various technological solutions that can make life easier for charities looking to streamline their fundraising process.  

 

Access Workspace for Charities empowers fundraising teams through connected donor journey software. It helps with everything, from driving traffic to your website through Access Charity Ad Grants, and converting that interest into meaningful online activity with Access Charity Websites, to engaging supporters continuously with Access Charity CRM. The Charity CRM comes with marketing automation tools to continue the ongoing relationship over time. 

 

Finally, with Access PaySuite, you can enhance your fundraising donations and generate a reliable regular giving income. 

 

With everything in one place, the cloud-based software allows each solution to operate on its own, or as an connected part of the full suite.