How much difference can a donation page make, really?
Turns out, quite a bit.
Want proof? Look no further than the Irish International Immigrant Center. When they switched from a PayPal donation page to an embedded pop-up CauseVox donation page, they saw remarkable growth, almost immediately.
The Irish International Immigrant Center (IIIC) in Boston, Massachusetts, assists immigrants from Ireland and around the world as they integrate into American society.
They empower immigrants and refugees by providing the legal, wellness and educational support they need to build successful lives. Founded by Irish immigrants in the 1980s, today the organization works with people from over 120 countries.
Online fundraising is a developing priority for the organization, and the PayPal portal that the organization was using for donation processing was holding them back. They were improving their online presence with a new, visually-appealing website, and it was time to update their donation page, too.
The PayPal portal was generic. There was no way to include any information about the organization or customize it in any way. It was visually boring, and the organization couldn’t use it to collect donor data beyond an email address.
Megan Miller, the Development Director of the IIIC, knew she needed a better option, and in the fall of 2018, she switched to CauseVox.
It didn’t take long to see a difference. In the same period the previous year, they had raised $33,000 through Paypal. “The CauseVox Donation Page has helped us raise $60,000 in the past 7 months,” Megan says. “In the same period last year, we raised significantly less for all of our online fundraising combined, including year-end. It has been really great for us.”
When tasked with evaluating platforms that would help their organization raise more with less effort, Megan chose CauseVox because:
Obviously, a donation page alone does not automatically result in more donations. So what did Megan and the IIIC do with theirs to experience so much growth?
Each time she launches an appeal, Megan includes an online component, pointing to the donation page. She “splashes” the links all over the organization’s social media, web content, emails, and print materials.
The IIIC donation page is easy to link to content, like this fundraising video. “In the past we would not have had a good place to drive people to with a post like this,” Megan says.
“We’ve found it’s been great to be able to integrate all of our online and even paper-based communications to refer people to this donor-friendly visually-engaging donation page,” Megan told us. “Maybe for some people, the letter is still the prompt, but you can really still connect them to this central point.”
Here’s an interesting and encouraging discovery: the IIIC is bringing in a lot more money than they used to, but it isn’t from a ton of donations. While they’ve seen a slight increase in the number of gifts, the real growth is in the average gift amount. It’s increased by almost $100.
What makes the difference? Donation tiers. Instead of a generic form, the IIIC donation page suggests giving levels and ties them to impact. When people see the impact their gift will make, it can inspire them to give more.
“I would imagine that the suggested price points also encouraged higher gifts,” Megan points out. With CauseVox, she can set the giving levels that make the most sense based on her data.
If you’ve ever had a clunky, ugly donation page, you’ll understand what Megan means when she says some of her growth could because, “It may have been that we were much happier with the quality of the page, and therefore, were more excited to share it readily!”
Instead of an out-of-date and generic payment portal, the IIIC now has a “stream-lined, donor-friendly page that we’re excited to direct our constituents to through direct mail, social media, and email communications,” says Megan.
Branded, embedded donation forms inspire confidence from donors, too–they can raise up to 6X more.
Megan used CauseVox for her year-end and spring appeals, raising over $45,000 at year-end, and over $50,000 in the spring. These kinds of results make her hopeful for even more growth in the future.
“It’s great to have all these tools to grow into,” she says, as she considers the potential of peer to peer fundraising or other CauseVox tools.“With minimal work, we’ve been able to increase our online giving, and know that there’s potential for us to grow and continue to develop new fundraising initiatives.”
We’re so excited to see the goals that Megan and the IIIC tackle next, and we’re so pleased to be part of their team. “The ongoing customer service, the ease of use, the ability to capture all this [donor] information, that’s really been what’s kept us using CauseVox and excited to continue working with CauseVox in the future,” Megan says.
Explore how you can get results like the IIIC did with your own CauseVox donation page.
Sign up with CauseVox or request a 1-on-1 demo to see how you can increase donations and convert more donors without wasting effort on admin or wrestling clunky software.
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