Episode 19 - Online Giving Pages for Christian Organizations

Online donations for Christian organizations, Non profits, and churches are the lifeblood for funding kingdom work around the globe. Yet, they sometime are the most neglected pages on our websites. Strange, right?

Too many leaders and web teams assume that "just because our website can take donations, we have done our part.... now it is up to the donor!"

So not true. It is OUR Job to help donors and givers feel confident that their gifts are going to ministry. We have a lot of work to do to "fix" our online giving pages.

So if you are a church or Christian Non profit wanting to know "How to create an online giving page?" or "How to set up online donations?" or "How to improve online giving?" Listen in. I will give you some tips to helping increase your online ministry funding potential. 

Transcript

Welcome to the, this is his story podcast the Executive Director

and Pastor guide to sowing and reaping online givers.

Welcome to online giving Pages for Christian organizations.

Well, let me start with setting the table for this discussion today,

you know, if you listen to me or know me,

I literally don't like talking about tactics or the letter of the law.

I like talking about the spirit of the

law when people understand why they're doing what they're doing.

And not just give you a Magic Bullet,

because there's no such thing as a Magic Bullet,

especially when it comes to online fundraising for Ministry work and Kingdom work.

One of the analogies I give frequently is this that?

Imagine you are the coach of a,

you know, your kids football team and somebody gave you Tom,

Brady, Super bowl-winning Playbook.

Why would you run that you your players aren't the players he had

and they were running special plays based on the situation.

They had at hand and you just can't run some.

One else's Playbook, what? Most small to mid-sized organizations

and churches need is an offensive coordinator,

someone who looks at their talent and looks at their needs,

then gives them a special Playbook.

And so, I feel like what's happening right now with all the different podcast

and social media and blogs that a lot of organizations can go out and sort of get,

quote-unquote, the best plays they put it on top of their Then it doesn't do well

and they're confused by what we're doing all the right things,

but you're not you're literally borrowing someone else's Playbook.

Yo, what you need is an offensive coordinator.

So with that said, I am going to get a little bit more detail to date on a couple of things that

I see in almost all the donation pages that I look at.

I'm making this number up but it's got to be true.

95% of all the donation pages.

I see need work. I almost can critique.

Maybe 98% but almost all donation.

Pages, need some work and over 60 or 70 percent of them need major work.

I tell people quite frequently little things that we do,

you know, I'm a digital strategist

for faith-based organizations that work with churches

and Christian nonprofits and I help them tell their story and get new names and donations.

We that's primarily what I do.

But if you could do something in an email that gets a five percent better response rate.

If you could do something on your website or your navigation,

that gets a ten percent left, you can do something on your donation page.

It gets a 12% left. Like all those little lifts make a giant different over the

course of years of the people that are giving to you,

or potentially funding your ministry.

And sometimes you do something like well,

that's not that big of a deal. Well, no, it may not.

B-but cumulative. It certainly is I think most organizations would be shocked if they actually took

the time to look at the abandonment rates on their online giving Pages.

It's very very high. If you knew them you would it would really make you think twice

because a lot of churches are notorious for this church is just put a online,

you know, give button on the top right of their website and they think Well,

you know, I wonder why people aren't giving we have people in our pews and don't give it's like,

well, of course they don't like this is idea that like you just put a give button,

people will jump over, whatever hurdle,

whatever logic problems. They have whatever technical troubles that they have,

those get over because they just want to give that's not true.

The abandonment rate online giving pages are very very high.

Especially for pages that aren't well put together.

And as you do a better job,

Putting the right elements and putting them in the right order.

On your online donation page. You will see that your benefit rates start to drop.

And that's how, you know, you're going in a good direction,

but you got to be measuring them first, but that's another story for another day.

So, you know, my class. I have an online master class for nonprofit and one for churches.

And I do have sections on donation pages.

So if you want a deeper dive, I suggest you go to my website

and look at those master classes are cheap.

Money back, guaranteed. I mean, I don't know how anybody could go wrong with that.

But let's talk about three major things

for online giving Pages for Christian organizations and churches.

One this sounds so evident.

I can't believe I'm saying it in 2022,

still a problem. People don't test for mobile over half of your traffic is using mobile.

We build the web pages on our computers and we think that's how people are going to consume.

Zoom them, but so much giving is done through mobile and the pages just aren't built for mobile.

You think they are or you were told that they were but they're not.

I mean it's amazing about. In fact you want to go get really crazy go like your band

and when rights and look at them for Mobile versus desktop and see what you see.

So mobile friendly case for supports mobile friendly videos.

Over-friendly wording just the whole thing.

We'll talk a little bit about testing that and S 2.

There are multiple ways to show your value proposition.

If you don't know, whether it is look it up,

but it is why people give to you for whatever you're asking them to give for.

Once again, people use this phrase all the time,

the donors that hero, but it's true,

your they're giving to make something happen.

They're not just giving because you ask,

they want to feel good. Good. That their money is going to be used in a valuable Kingdom Minded way.

And did you do a good job doing that?

So, there are various ways to show your value proposition on your website.

And and I'm your online giving page is another problem.

Is that people sometimes put their value proposition on another page

and they get to their giving page

and they don't reinforce the value proposition and you'll see a high abandonment rate.

So there's It's ways to show your proposition proposition or your case for support.

And what I find funny to is organizations that have one giving page,

your you may have a campaign going.

Are, you may have various value,

propositions, and various case for support,

and you're running everybody through the same funnel and wondering why you're not converting.

Well, what once again, your campaign may be different than your overall mission in general,

or very Suffolk and you don't build out specific pages and it's a major mistake.

It is funny. How on the back end like sometimes you say.

Okay. No. No, we look, we made a special page for this campaign,

but then, it still falls into the same funnel,

or the receipt page and the messaging still off.

So, that leads to the third third issue for today.

Test. Test test, building,

a donation Pages. Not a set. Forget it.

Look at your receipts. Look at the welcome flow

and maybe a giant mist and the communication messaging your giving.

And like I tell people all the time, if somebody gives you a dollar to dig a well in Africa

for this Village,

your next communication with me, better.

Show me a kid, drinking clean water.

Are you buying a shovel or digging a hole?

Like tell part of the story and what happens?

Sometimes you have people To give and then your receipt says,

a different vibe. You're welcome flow has a different vibe and then people are like Han.

I wouldn't even know where that my money was meant.

For this thing that I was trying to be the hero one.

So test, test test test test.

Make sure that each individual giving story value proposition rolls itself,

all the way back into the emails

and the follow-up and any phone calls any letterings to make sure that the donor feel,

Like wow, my daughter is doing a lot and I have therefore.

I know my next dollar is going to do do a lot as well.

It's so funny as well.

What I've noticed I'm using that word a lot today

because there are things that are sort of frustrating in this industry.

And one of them is church, software is the absolute worst.

And so a lot of churches don't have sophisticated online giving Pages

because they've trusted what they've been told of like,

well, this This this fall this works with our membership software really well.

And you know, it's a really clean look for people to give but it is not made for Value.

Propositions. It is not made to be versatile and create multiple cases for support value.

Propositions for giving churches are horrible at that.

What do you had to take my class? You will learn a lot and how to fix that.

But anyway, so today online giving Pages for Should organizations test for mobile and test it.

Like go do it yourself? Make your tweaks.

Go look for your abandonment rates.

If you possibly can find them.

And watch them and watch them change.

As you do a better job of displaying your value proposition,

and making sure that people who give are able to constantly get a flow of the

communication of whatever it Is that they gave to

and know that their money did good for Kingdom work?

Okay. Blessings. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to today's episode of.

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