How nonprofits can improve mobile donations conversions

With the end of the year approaching, many donors are calculating and deciding how to allocate the money they’ve set aside for charitable contributions. According to fundraising consultant Gail Perry, the majority of donations to nonprofit and philanthropic organizations will come at the end of the year. In fact, Perry explained nonprofit groups can expect to receive 22 percent of annual online donations in December. With that in mind, it’s important that nonprofit organizations are following some simple steps to ensure their online and, increasingly importantly, their mobile donation pages are as user-friendly and effective as possible:

Make mobile donations easy 
Perry highlighted the fact that donor abandonment – a close cousin to shopping cart abandonment – is a significant problem in the nonprofit industry as a whole. When donors make the choice to contribute to a nonprofit enterprise, they should have as few obstacles as possible to completing this goal. When organizations haven’t optimized their donation portal for mobile devices, they will likely see higher rates of abandonment for a number of reasons. Information should be easily identifiable and simple enough for donors of any age to read. When donors have to include extraneous information – data not immediately necessary to making the donation – there’s less of a chance they’ll complete the donation.

Improve mobile donation page processing 
Alongside making a mobile donation page easy to navigate, nonprofit organizations should work to improve processing times, according to The NonProfit Times. The news source indicated donors are more likely to refrain from making a contribution when processing times for a donation are excessively long. In fact, The Times cited a study conducted by Open Fundraising, which found 50 percent of donors failed to reach the final step in making a donation because too much time was spent to reach that point.

Laura Quinn, executive director for the Portland, Maine-based nonprofit Idealware, confirmed that optimizing the donation landing page is a crucial step, paying special attention to the page format. If a donation landing page has a landscape layout and most smartphones are read in a vertical page view, donors will be forced to scroll sideways to read through the form completely, which interrupts the donation process, explained the senior design and implementation director at Zuri Group Elisa Cheng.

Nonprofit organizations have time to adapt their mobile donation strategy to avoid donor abandonment issues. However, it’s never too early to start planning for the new year to start out on the best foot.