Donors who reach your donation page are at a critical point in their engagement. Your donation page’s content and presentation impact whether visitors give, how much they contribute, and whether they’ll donate again.
One key way to capture donations and leave a lasting impression is through your brand identity. This is what sets you apart from other nonprofits and proves that your organization is worthy of donors’ support.
The best nonprofit websites incorporate a strong branding strategy in their donation page design. A well-crafted donation page can help in the following ways:
Ready to learn more about the value of branding your giving page? Let’s dive in!
Reinforce your nonprofit’s mission and values.
Your donation page can help convey your brand identity and reinforce your nonprofit’s mission. By branding your giving page, donors can be sure they’re giving to the right organization and will feel more connected to your nonprofit’s cause.
Here are a few ways nonprofits can customize their donation page to get their mission across:
- Use your brand’s logo. Prominently feature your logo at the top of your donation page. Your nonprofit logo should be memorable, reflective of your mission or values, and visually pleasing. Choose a simple design that is unique to your organization and will help it stand out. After all, your logo is only effective if supporters can connect with it, so prioritize creating a design that will strengthen donor relationships.
- Add your color scheme. Incorporate your brand’s color scheme to make your donation page pop. If you don’t have a color scheme yet, think about your organization’s values and a few colors that work well together. For instance, an environmental organization might choose to incorporate green and brown into their color scheme since these colors are closely associated with nature and the earth.
- Use consistent font(s). Use the same font from your website and other marketing materials to create a consistent feel and further establish your brand. Your font should be easy to read and stand out from other organizations’ brands. Consider using a sans serif font due to its simplicity and legibility.
- Offer examples of what various donation amounts would accomplish. If you include suggested giving amounts on your donation form, consider adding a brief explanation of what a gift of that size will accomplish. For example, a food bank might explain how many meals each donation amount can buy. Make this specific to your nonprofit’s mission to reinforce your values and your organization’s brand.
After supporters complete your branded donation page, make sure you have a follow-up plan in place to show your appreciation and deliver on your brand promise. This might take the form of an impact statement that conveys what initiative each donation will support or a more general statement thanking donors for their time and gift.
Expand your reach.
While many of your supporters will navigate through your website to find your donation page, others will receive a link straight to it during various fundraising campaigns. Many common campaigns can benefit from having a highly shareable, branded donation page, such as:
- Peer-to-peer campaigns. With peer-to-peer campaigns, your loyal supporters will tackle fundraising on their own and tap into their personal networks to raise money. Ensuring your donation page is branded helps increase brand recognition, especially if this is their first time interacting with your nonprofit.
- Giving day campaigns. Giving day campaigns encourage many donors to give within a short period of time. Most nonprofits promote their giving days by leveraging social media fundraising strategies such as hashtags and encouraging supporters to post about their donations. This fast-paced promotion strategy means your donation page will likely be shared with donors looking to make a contribution quickly. However, they’ll still want to be sure what organization they’re giving to, so make sure your donation page is branded and ready for social media sharing.
- Text-to-give and QR codes. Your text-to-give number and scannable QR codes will take donors straight to a mobile version of your donation page. With the limited space available, make sure your donation page has the necessary brand elements to inform mobile donors they are in the right place.
Establishing an identifiable brand identity on your donation page helps to build trust, even when your page is being widely distributed and therefore disconnected from the rest of your website. Your brand can establish a sense of professionalism and encourage supporters to give further through additional forms of contributing, such as matching gifts. According to 360MatchPro, 84% of donors reported a higher likelihood of donating if a match is offered. Add a matching gifts tool to your donation page to amp up your fundraising efforts.
Create a consistent experience for your supporters.
Your donors will likely interact with your nonprofit across a variety of channels before deciding to make a contribution. Branding your donation page helps keep their experience with your nonprofit uniform and professional from beginning to end.
Before designing your donation page, make sure you have a website builder that can accommodate your nonprofit’s needs. Morweb’s guide to nonprofit website builders emphasizes that you should find a website platform that is highly customizable, allowing your nonprofit to create fully branded websites and easily update content when you update the visual elements of your brand.
Creating a consistent experience can provide your nonprofit and your donors with multiple benefits. For instance, you’ll be able to:
- Provide increased security. If your donation form directs donors away from the rest of your website, they may be wary about entering their financial information. Be sure you can embed your donation form directly into your website. Then, include your logo and other key brand elements to let donors know they’re giving to your organization, making them feel safer about sharing their information.
- Make the most of your donation form’s space. Your donation forms have a limited amount of space, and donors will decide quickly if they want to keep scrolling through your form. Using consistent imagery and branding across your website will establish a sense of continuity with the rest of your website as soon as visitors open your donation page.
- Encourage donors to make accounts. You can further improve your donors’ experience by providing them with the option to create an account with your nonprofit. Doing so will cause them to interact with even more branded content, further increasing their brand recognition.
Creating brand materials that can be used consistently across all of your communication channels can take some trial and error. Many organizations experiment with A/B testing and other strategies to discover the exact brand colors and logo styles that work for them. If you do end up changing any elements of your brand, make sure to update all of your website’s content, especially your donation page, as soon as possible.
The Gist
Your nonprofit’s brand communicates your mission, cause, and values. When you brand your donation page, you create a consistent experience for your donors that reinforces what cause they’re giving to and why. Use a nonprofit website builder to streamline the web design process and produce a beautiful, branded giving page. Good luck!
About the Author
Murad Bushnaq
Murad Bushnaq is the Founder and CEO of Morweb. Since its inception in 2014, Murad has acted as Creative Director and Chief Technologist to help nonprofits spread their vision online through engaging design, intuitive software and strategic communication.
