You can read this blog post in Swedish.
Charity organisations have a vital role in our society. Not only do they advocate for the well-being of an immense number of causes, but they bring together individuals around the world who want to make a difference. From global hunger to healthcare, from poverty to environmental protection, for every cause, there's an organisation fighting to be heard. However, most charities are facing the same problem when it comes to funding. Even if people care, even if people have the willingness to make a difference, many times those intentions do not translate into actual donations, and charities are seeing themselves with fewer resources in an environment where help is more needed than ever. So, how can you improve the conversion rate for your charity? We’ll tell you all about it in this post!
Charity organisations have an immense role in grassroots movements, democratisation, and the increase of well-being in societies. After all, they reach where others don’t. However, in the latest years, they’ve witnessed how recurrent donors have become less common. For example, a study conducted by the Charity Aid Foundation (CAF) showed that, since 2016, the number of individuals who gave money directly to charity had decreased from 69% to 57% by 2019.
Adding to this downward trend, the situation aroused by the pandemic and the subsequent financial situation has had a tremendous impact on their funding.
The economic downturn has probably put a gaping hole in your charity organisation, which has resulted in you finding yourself with fewer resources but a higher demand for your aid. Likewise, the impossibility of creating personal meetings or having volunteers in the street and public places has probably hijacked some of your flagship events where you expected to attract most of your recurrent donors. You may have even had to redefine your strategy, for example, by pushing more resources into telemarketing channels.
Furthermore, in the past years, subscription-based businesses have flourished. Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, and other platforms have taken the social space. For every need, there is an app, and for every app, a subscription model is waiting to make people’s lives easier.
So, charities have become less relevant and are losing their market niche. Finding frequent donors has become a very demanding task in terms of time and money. Whereas occasional contributors are extremely important, subscriptions account for the vast majority of income generation when it comes to charities. A striking example is that a recurrent donor contributes on average 42% more per year than a one-time giver. Because of this, it's crucial that you focus on improving your charity conversion rate when it comes to subscriptions.
But how can you achieve this? Well, here you have some tips on how can you lower the entry barrier for your donors and how can you finally give that boost to your conversion rate.
Digitalise your processes to improve charity conversion rates
Omnichannel: make it possible to donate via various channels
Charities have the power to hold people accountable and take action. When people care about a cause it's easier for them to get involved. However, this feeling might diminish over time and even if there's a concern about a specific topic, the willingness to take action might be diluted among daily tasks and responsibilities. In fact, the charity conversion rate via phone is, in general, lower than 50%.
Hence, catching your prospective donors at the right time is essential for your charity to boost that conversion rate. By starting the payment directly on the call or right after, you will be able to convert those hot leads into actual paying donors while their sense of responsibility is still high.
With Waytobill's telesales payment plugin, you can save between 50 and 80% of otherwise lost orders. Prospects receive a payment link via a text message and are redirected to a checkout pre-filled with their information, which positively impacts conversion rates.
The charity sector is experiencing an enormous change when it comes to technology. Digital transformation has a predominant role across businesses, and your charity is probably starting or in the middle of it. This enables new channels and ways to communicate and complete the processes.
A common problem you might be facing is the inefficient use of paper forms and snail mail. Let’s be honest, paper forms get lost, they take time to arrive, and they are easily forgotten. Often, they are filled out with errors too. To avoid all these problems, you should rely on platforms that provide an easy checkout, where you can easily store this data.
The easier the process is for your donors, the better. When your donor is familiarised with the payment options, it might be easier for them to allow the purchase without extra effort. In a study conducted by Cardtronics, 7 out of 10 consumers make payment decisions depending on which available payment complied better with their security and commodity standards.
Because of this, we encourage you to have a payment service provider equipped with different payment options. For example, as a payment service provider, Waytobill offers both local direct debit methods and cards and invoices as a form of payment.
As a charity organisation, you know good deeds can be found everywhere. And the same happens with your potential donors. Hence, it’s s crucial that you can offer them the possibility to sign up wherever they are, lowering the entry barrier and boosting your charity conversion rate.
Improve your omnichannel strategy, which will allow you to enable different channels to finalise payments with your possible donors and convert them into monthly subscribers. You can find customers in social media, street campaigns, telemarketing channels or even in a paper pamphlet in the middle of the subway. In this case, all you would need would be a QR code solution for your charity.
When it comes to subscriptions, the key is in the automatisation of payments. In a classic model, the responsibility for continuing the payment is in the donors’ hands. This situation can entangle what is defined as an involuntary churn rate. In other words, even if the person wants to keep contributing to your charity, they are unable to do it because of different circumstances such as failure in payments, misplacement of the invoice, or, let’s be honest, it just slips their minds.
By automating payments, you are inverting this responsibility. With certain payment methods such as a card or autogiro in Sweden, the order will be automatically charged from the donor’s account as long as they’d like, erasing the possibilities of involuntary churn messing with your organisation and increasing retention.
As you can see, the current scenario requires extra effort from charities. Income diversification and a strong conversion rate are more crucial than ever. As a charity organisation, you need to take full advantage of any available channel to promote this, but not everything demands a Herculean effort. With the right partner, you can boost your charity conversion rate and take your organisation to the next level. All you have to do is... contact us!