How you design your online giving experience will have a dramatic effect on the amount your church will receive. If your giving process is hidden, difficult, and confusing – less people will give. If it’s easy and obvious – more people will give. And if you follow-up with gratitude – more people will give again.
1. Make Giving Obvious
You should have an obvious “Donate Now” button on the front page of your website. You will lose people if it’s not on the front page. You will lose people if they can’t read the page on their phones (you already knew that most people view websites on their phones and not their computers, right?). You will lose people if it’s located in an odd spot on the page. The harder that button is to find the fewer the people who will find it.
You should also have an obvious “Donate Now” button on your social media – especially whenever you live-stream an event or a service. This is crucial. While intentional givers will make an effort to track down your website, the multitudes of spontaneous givers will only give if you offer the opportunity to give – right now. Since most of these people will be encountering you on social media, it is essential to present them an opportunity to give there. Facebook has a fundraising service that you can attach to every live-stream you do.
2. Make Giving Compelling
For far too long we’ve taken people’s generosity for granted. We pass the plates every week and they put money in the plates – a system that’s worked without any pause or reflection for centuries.
Things have changed. We can no longer assume that everyone is going to feel naturally obligated to click a “Donate Now” button in the same way they used to put money in a plate. We have to give them a compelling reason to do this.
On your church’s own website you should have a short paragraph on why people should give. Understand that people give as a means to accomplish something, so tell them what their giving is going to accomplish in terms of community impact. If your church currently doesn’t have any community impact, you might want to re-think what it means to be salt and light and make some changes on how you do church.
On your live-stream make sure you explain how and why to give in a way that makes people excited to join you in following the Great Commission. Every time you live-stream take a short minute to teach giving principles and then give people an opportunity to immediately act on that teaching.
3. Make Giving Easy
Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.
The more confusing and complex you make the giving experience the fewer the people who will give. Here are some best practices to keep in mind:
Have giving on the front page. If people have to navigate to other pages you will lose them.
Simplify your donation form. If people have to answer a bunch of questions and fill out tedious forms you will lose them.
Avoid 3rd-party websites and forms. If your chosen giving solution directs your givers to an outside form or website you will lose people – the process abandonment rate will go up by 500%.
Give people different options on how to give. The fewer options the fewer people will use them.
4. Make Giving Personal and Responsive
A good system makes a process feel warm and human, a bad system makes a process feel cold and robotic.
Whenever someone gives, they’ve taken an important step in following Jesus. They’ve made a personal sacrifice for the sake of others. As a pastor, it’s important that you reinforce godly thinking and action. Therefore, whenever someone gives, we should respond to them with gratitude. If it’s a regular giver we should respond with thanks. If it’s a first-time giver we should make this connection of gratitude as personal as possible – a phone call or a hand-written note would be appropriate. If it’s a particularly large sacrificial gift your response should match the level of generosity.
John works as an Effectiveness Coach with the ABNWT District of the PAOC. He is a strategic thinker who has pastored urban and rural churches, traditional and on the cutting edge. He is a passionate evangelist who is committed to rapid church growth by creating churches that unchurched people love to attend. With his church planting, multi-service, multi-site, and church merger experience, he regularly trains leaders, coaches church planters, and helps other pastors lead their churches into new growth.