Four Must-Haves for Your “Thank You for Your Donation!” Landing Page
[tweetmeme] For all the buzz about new media in the nonprofit sector, it is somewhat surprising how few nonprofits have integrated their new media campaigns into one of the most important pages on their website – the “Thank You for Your Donation!” landing page. That is, the page your donors land on after making a donation. Donors pay a lot of attention to this page because it confirms their donation has been processed, so as we enter 2011 fundraising season, strategically adding some fresh content to your nonprofit’s “Thank You for Your Donation!” landing page would be a wise use of your time:
1) Add a “Thank You” video or slideshow to your landing page.
You can’t thank your donors enough and in a world where individuals increasingly struggle with information overload, a “Thank You” video or slideshow can be a welcome respite from the traditional text-heavy-thank-you that most people don’t even read anymore. An excellent example is last year’s “Thank You from all of us from Ocean Conservancy” video:
2) Add social networking pitches to your landing page.
Your donors are your most committed supporters and very likely to also follow you on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Tumblr, etc. and sometimes all it takes is a simple ask. For example:
Thank you very much for donating to Such-and-Such Animal Shelter! Your contribution will be combined with others to help save the lives of tens of thousands of dogs, cats, kittens, and puppies. To stay regularly informed on our work and the lives of the animals, please join us on:
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3) Add a peer-to-peer fundraising pitch to your landing page.
It’s a brave new world in online fundraising. Releasing control and allowing your supporters to fundraise on behalf of your organization could result in a steady stream of new income for your nonprofit – and the holidays are a great time to pitch the idea to your donors. Known as peer-to-peer fundraising, your nonprofit can easily set up peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns in just a couple of hours using a service like Razoo, FirstGiving, or Crowdrise that enable your most committed donors to easily create online fundraising pages. Or, you can use a more advanced service that embeds the peer-to-peer fundraising capability directly into your website. An example of the later would be MercyCorps:
4) Add a mobile pitch to your landing page.
Even if your nonprofit has no immediate plans to launch a mobile campaign, that may change in 2012 and its likely that you are going to want the mobile phone numbers of your donors in the years to come. Whether you add it as an optional field to your “Donate Now” page or to your “Thank You for your donation” landing page, nonprofits would be wise to start building their mobile lists during the Fall 2011 fundraising season. Unlike snail and email addresses which can be legally traded and sold, mobile phone numbers can not. Mobile lists take time and trust to build, and if they trust your nonprofit enough to donate, it is likely that they also trust you enough to give you their mobile phone numbers. That said, Nonprofit Tech 2.0 recently launched a text alert campaign. You can subscribe by sending NONPROFITORGS to 27138. A widget that allows you to simply enter your mobile phone number and click or tap a subscribe button is coming soon. 🙂
Related Links:
Webinar: How Nonprofits Can Successfully Utilize Online Fundraising and e-Newsletters
Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits
Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog :: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits 
I’m a little concerned when discussions of online and mobile giving omit the legal restrictions and requirements associated with the practice in the US. In short, charities soliciting funds online *may* be subject to state-level and/or local-level charitable solicitation registration requirements, which usually include annual report filings and both initial and annual filing fees. Similarly, third parties soliciting on behalf of charities also have to register and file. Finally, no one should solicit donations on behalf of a charity without the charity’s express permission. Not only are gifts solicited by third parties often not deductible, the third parties may be guilty of trademark and copyright infringement for using the charity’s name, logo, or other branding in their unauthorized solicitations.
Hi Michael… a good point, however the vast majority of online donation processors these days have done the legal work to allow donations across all 50 states… same thing with peer-to-peer fundraising tools. These concerns were very relevant 5 years ago, but in today’s online fundraising world the vast majority of online donation processors are legal and up on copyright law. Just not that big a concern anymore… thankfully. Progress. 🙂
This is great stuff, thanks again!
Add a second part to the social network pitch, have the ability to post on twitter/facebook/etc that “I just donated to ___ and saved a kitten! you can too at ___.com”.
Great idea! Is there a way to build this into the coding?
Hi, I have a question. since I launched the web page we are now a corporation, but waiting to be exempt from IRS…are we still able to request donations on the tax ID without the exempt completed?
This is my first time, I do get a litte lost.
No… you have to wait for the donation to be tax deductible for donors. 🙂
I have my daughter deaf and I will follow what you write in this article. Thanks for sharing this ..
Great post! Quick note in case anyone is wondering — CharityWeb actually powers Mercy Corps peer-to-peer fundraising pages. We worked with them to develop the solution. They are a wonderful organization doing an amazing amount of good.
Hey there,
New to the nonprofit world and fundraising, I’m currently helping to create a peer-to-peer campaign. I like your last tip the most, and hope to think about incorporating a pitch on my organization’s landing page in the near future.
Thanks for posting!
Amanda Jones
NTEN
Membership and Fundraising Coordinator
It is cool to create thank you page with all donors listed, people tend to donate more after that trick.