Meet Your Donors Where They’re At

By Mandi Nieland, Customer Success Lead

For nonprofit organizations of all sectors, shapes, and sizes, one area of focus that we all have in common is fundraising. Some groups thrive on it, others dread it. But regardless, it’s one of the most important aspects of our work. As we all know, donor dollars are what keeps the lights on, so to speak. 

And as fundraising has evolved, organizations find themselves in a position where they have to invest in solutions that will help them raise money online in order to reach as many of their donors as possible. But online 3rd party fundraising platforms can be pretty overwhelming to wade through, especially for smaller organizations who just need fundraising tools that work out of the box and don’t require a PhD in computer science. So when Shelterluv incorporated a donation ask into our mobile checkout flow, we addressed three critical components of fundraising: 

  1. Meet your donors where they’re at
  2. Make it as easy as possible for people to donate
  3. Tie your donation ask directly to the work you do

The good news is that it WORKED. To date, Shelterluv has helped our customers raise $3,911,247.82 in donations since we introduced our mobile checkout. 

The bummer news is that due to concerns about processing fees, a lot of our smaller customers have missed out on this feature and the donation dollars that come with it. We wanted to make sure that ALL of our customers had a chance to raise some serious donation dollars without forcing their adoption staff to “make an ask.” We did some research and realized that most nonprofits are now giving their donors an opportunity to help them with overhead costs by covering the processing fees associated with their donation. In fact, depending on the donation platform, up to 65% of donors will choose to cover their processing fees, adding to their overall donation to your organization. That’s why we released an update to our Stripe-powered mobile checkout that offers donors the chance to cover the processing fees from their transaction in addition to making a donation! 

And wow – did it make a BIG difference! 

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Prior to updating our mobile checkout feature, 37% of mobile transactions included a donation, and the average donation amount per transaction was just over $28. after giving adopters the option to cover processing fees, we were thrilled to see that donors opted to cover their transaction fees 72% of the time, which means that now, 78% of mobile transactions include a donation! That’s something to celebrate! 

But what does this mean for YOUR organization? 

It means that your organization can now use our mobile checkout feature to increase donations and efficiency without fear of incurring additional credit card processing fees! We know it’s awkward to ask for donations. Let us ask for you! (Click here to check out all the ways our mobile checkout feature can make life easier.)

Remember when I mentioned how there are a ton of donation platforms out there? I don’t know about you, but when I was an Executive Director, the last thing I wanted was six different fundraising solutions that didn’t talk to each other: all needing to be managed separately, all looking a little different from one another and forcing donors to redirect away from our website. Pro tip, 90% of donors (yes, NINETY PERCENT) don’t like it either —being redirected to a completely separate page from your website or being sent to 3rd party sites that don’t look like they’re run by your organization can keep donors from giving to you again.

That’s why we also created the Donation Boost Widget. This handy little link is also powered by Stripe, so it rolls into the same reporting as your mobile checkout donations. It can be incorporated into your website, shared on social media, or even texted to your donors. It provides Shelterluv customers a way to streamline fundraising across multiple platforms, including your website, without having to use a ton of different 3rd party tools. The Donation Boost Widget creates a more seamless donation experience, which donors trust and feel comfortable using. 

So to our smaller customers who need to maximize every opportunity to raise funds: we hope you reconsider and give our Stripe-powered fundraising features a shot! It could be just the automated, time-saving feature your organization needs for some next-level fundraising.