Online Donations

Sara Atkinson

Haworth Cat Rescue

Why does my charity need a

web presence?

The website should be a focal point for your charity: for its staff, members, donors, volunteers, services, projects.

It should be at the heart of everything a charity does. Once this philosophy is adopted, other marketing tools can be used to drive donations, including Social Media.

Essential pages on a website• Home page

Up-to-date information, pictures, stories, links to other parts of the site. Snap shots and pictures.

• About usInformation about what your organisation does. Why it exists, how

it is funded, background, general aims etc. Can be quite wordy.

• Contact usAddress (unless it creates a risk), phone numbers, email address

or “contact us” template. Ensure you have the resources to deal with any enquiries received.

• Donate

Further pages

• How you can help• Projects• Current events/what’s happening• Completed projects/events• Shop• In memorium/legacy (a gift in your will)• Feedback???• Anything!!

Donate page

• Don’t ask for donations

• But make it easy for people to donate

• Describe how you can use donations (eg what things cost)

• Have lots of different ways for people to donate – cash, cheque, online, in person, regular (direct debit or SO)

SAY THANK YOU!

Harness the power of Social Media

• Charities should develop and implement a plan to harness the power of Social Media.

• Social Media was built for individuals not organisations, so charities need to get individuals to do the work building relationships. This can result in the creation of a substantial donor/member base via high networked individuals.

Social Media

• Facebook• Twitter• Blog• LinkedIn• YouTube• Flickr• Chat rooms relevant to your area of work?

Don’t try them all at once, choose one or two and concentrate on building your presence there.

Facebook

• Community pages – use a community page to build a mini website on facebook. Have pages to tell your supporters about your work, and to include a donate/help us feature. Use the page to feed information to your followers. Ask your staff, volunteers, service users, suppliers, anybody to “like” your page, and their friends will see and “like” your page too.

Facebook cont

• Profiles – these are for individuals, however you will need one to create your community page;

• Groups – these are useful for specific projects or events;

• Privacy settings – make as public as you can to engage more people to “like” your page.

Twitter

• Useful for small snippets of information – you can only post 140 characters;

• Useful for links to relevant websites;

• Other interested parties will “re-tweet” any snippets you post, so they reach a wider audience;

• You can post in realtime, eg if you’re at a conference, or following a debate.

Blogging

• This is great for telling stories;

• It can also be used for imparting information;

• Or giving an opinion on something;

• It’s a good way to get your organisation’s name into cyber-space;

• You can link your blog to your website, facebook, twitter feed, LinkedIn etc…

LinkedIn

• This is good for professional contacts

• Better for individuals but you can create groups, companies and profiles

• Advertise jobs, trustee vacancies

You Tube & Flickr

• Great for pictorial sharing

Fundraising sites

These often have a donate function as well.• Virgin Money Giving• The Dove Trust/Charity Giving• Just Giving• BMyCharity• MyDonate (this is a new one from BT)Some of these are free, others have a set-

up fee, most charge a commission.

What next?

That was the easy bit!

Now you need to direct people to your site(s). The best website in the world is useless if no-one ever looks at it!

How to direct people

• Social Media – all the things we’ve talked about;• Newsletters and other publications;• Business cards;• SEO;• Word of Mouth;• Email signature;• Interact – respond and comment;• Cross reference from one online site to another

and ….

Google Adwords

Google offer a free advertising programme using their adwords scheme to charities (non-profits). You have to apply, but once you’re approved you can have $330 dollars free advertising PER DAY.

Google Adwords drive searchers to particular pages on your site – you decide which pages you want people to see!

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)It sounds scarey, but it isn’t! This is simply web-speak for

using the right words so that search engines (Google etc) find you when people search, using terms in your area of work. And putting the words in the right place.

So, for Haworth Cat Rescue we mention words like “cat”, “rescue”, “abandon”, “rehome” “Yorkshire” “kitten” “pet” “fur-baby” etc etc on our pages.

You can also label pictures (use the “alt-tab” line) and put a relevant phrase – eg we’d put “stray tabby cat at Haworth Cat Rescue” if we were putting such a cat on our website - the search engines look at the words on the alt-tab to find the picture as the picture itself doesn’t have words.

You don't need to create new communities.

The communities already exist on Social Networks and your donors will already be a part of them and can influence them.

USE YOUR FOLLOWERS

How Do I know it’s working?

• The donations received;

• The hits on your site(s);

• Feedback from users;

• Responses to other appeals;

• Statistics!

Social Media

• Facebook has page insights, you can tell how many people “like” your page; and how many are in groups you might have set up.

• Twitter – how many followers do you have?

• Blog – any subscribers?• YouTube – how many people have

watched your clips?

Donations received

If you have the same buttons on several sites, you may not know which are working best. For many buttons you can put “hidden wording” as part of the button, so that when you receive a notification it tells you which of your sites the donation came from.

EG “donation from facebook”, “donation from page 14 of website” etc etc

If you sign up with different donation companies, you may like to link different ones to different sites or different parts of your website. ie – Dove Trust on Facebook, Virgin Money Giving on your Donate page, Paypal on the sidebar of your site.

MONITOR IT!

Google (again!)

Google Analytics – is a brilliant way to track how many visitors come to your website – how long they stay, how they find you, how many pages they look at, if they return, where in the world they are etc etc…

You can put it on each page of your website and on your blog and probably lots of other places too…

AND IT’S FREE!!!

Other appeals

• Use the site(s) to appeal for practical items - nappies & toys for a community nursery;

- blankets for a refuge or shelter;

- cat food for a cat rescue!

- volunteers to help or to do one-off jobs.

WE CALL THIS FUNDSAVING

Feedback

• Manage any negative and positive comments (eg on Facebook) and it will improve your credibilty. We all know things go wrong sometimes, it’s how we respond that tells people how good we are – respond carefully, objectively and helpfully and you will do your organisation more good than harm. If you DENY DENY DENY you will not do yourself any favours.

• You can turn negative comments into donations/ support if you handle them correctly.

Why does my charity need a

web presence?

• The first point of reference for many people

• Your supporters can spread your message – this rolling stone DOES gather moss

• To the younger generation it is a part of life and often forms a great part of their leisure activity and socialisation.

• Older generations use it more and more too

• It is without boundaries in time and space – you can engage a supporter on the other side of the world whilst you’re fast asleep.

• http://www.knowhownonprofit.org/funding/fundraising/individual-giving/digital-fundraising

• http://www.gossinteractive.com/blog/tips-for-using-social-media-to-increase-donations

• http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/1056920/Rachel-Hawkes-Charities-shouldnt-use-social-media-just-talk-themselves/1B343A3DCC63E4FCF684D8810EA43D97/?DCMP=EMC-CONDailyBulletin

• https://www.paypal.com• http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/nonprofits/• http://www.google.com/analytics/• http://www.smallcharities.org.uk/home/• http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/

Useful links

Sara Atkinson

Haworth Cat Rescue

sara.atkinson@haworthcatrescue.org