What is a nonprofit donation page?

In digital fundraising, a donation page is typically a sub-page of your main website, created solely to capture online donations. It’s where a visitor typically ends up when they click on a donation link in an Email, digital ad, or “donate” CTAs on your nonprofit’s website.

Unlike other web pages, which typically encourage a visitor to explore your site to learn more about your mission and it’s impact, donation pages are designed with a single goal: provide a strong call to action to donate to your cause.

Here’s where donation pages might fit into your digital fundraising funnel:

The donation page exists after a potential donor clicks a CTA to support/donate to your mission in an email, ad, social post, or anywhere else on the web. It’s where the conversion (capturing a one-time or monthly donation) takes place.

In this post we’ll take a look the main components of a donation page and outline some key ways to make sure your page is optimized for donations in the process.

Anatomy of a nonprofit donation page

When it comes to building a donation page on your nonprofit’s website, there’s 3 core parts that every great nonprofit donation page includes:

• A design that focuses on keeping the potential donor on the donation page
• A distinct value prop that shares about your nonprofit and how a donation impacts the mission.
• A donation form that captures required information about the donor (personal + credit card info, typically)

That’s it. Nothing overly complex – and it’s something that every nonprofit needs to have on their website to capitalize on traffic that’s coming through 24x7x365.

Even though the core sections themselves don’t lend to a complex donation form configuration process, there are some very important components for both sections that help maximize donation conversions.

Let’s take a look at these three sections in depth.

Section 1: The donation page header

Believe it or not, removing any opportunity to navigate away from your donation page in the header increases your ability to capture a donation by 195%.

Yes, that’s right – 195%.

Section 2: Your nonprofit’s distinct value prop

A value proposition for a nonprofit is a unique statement that outlines how it’s mission is making a positive impact or solves a particular problem in the world.

It's what sets a nonprofit apart from others and makes it compelling for people to donate to – and plays a huge role in the effectiveness of donation pages.

A great value prop contains four basic elements:

• Appeal: Using storytelling and copy that makes an emotional appeal can drive up to 67% more donations.
• Exclusivity: Adding exclusive offers, insight, or resources that you can’t get anywhere else can drive upwards of 86% more donor conversions.
• Clarity: Be clear and direct about the mission, it’s needs, and the impact a donation has on the goals of your nonprofit
• Credibility: Introducing real stories from donors or quotes from those impacted by your mission not only provide a path to building trust, it drives higher conversion percentages.

Here's an example of an iDonate donation page with a value prop on the right hand side:

Section 3: Your nonprofit’s donation form

A nonprofit website donation form is an online form hosted on a nonprofit website that allows visitors to make donations directly through the website.

These forms typically collect essential information from donors, such as:

• Donation type (one-time donation or recurring gift)
• Name
• Contact Information
• Payment Details 

Here's an example of what that looks like on an iDonate donation page:

Optimization Tip: When designing your donation form, ensure it's fully visible from the start (a single-step form). Failing to do so may result in a significant 52% drop in donations.

Let’s breakdown each of these sections, following best=practice layouts.

Donation Type

This is the first thing you want to include in every donation form.

Ask for gift frequency first (one time or monthly) to ensure you are providing your donors with the option that works best for them.

Optimization Tip: Using a tabbed donation form for giving options can increase your donations by 15%

Gift Amount & Payment Type

This section is where your donor will select the amount that they would like to contribute to your mission.

This part of the form has a few specific things you will want to pay attention to for maximizing conversion and donations:

• Set your gift amount options (or, gift array) to be low ask to high (left to right)

After the gift array, provide the different payment options for your donor to select.

Optimization Tip: test out an open gift field to capture additional donations/revenue

Donor Billing Information

This section, where you capture required information about your donor, goes next.

The name of the game here is to group related fields to ensure there’s a natural, and expected, flow to the form that promotes completion momentum and help reduce a feeling of “this is work!” to complete.

With that in mind, here’s how to approach the layout of the donor billing information section to optimize for conversion and donations:

• Personal Information (Name, Email, Address)
• Credit Card/Debit Card information

Optimization Tip: Enhance security perception by adding a padlock image and reinforcing security-focused copy on your donation form. This simple addition could lead to a notable 20% increase in conversion rates.