Guide To Creating Awesome Online Donation Pages

The most significant change taking place in church giving is the creation of online donation for a new donor experience.

According to research, every year, more and more people prefer to donate their tithes and offerings online. Whether it’s donating to their church via online giving, text giving, or mobile giving, church online giving is the new normal.

As a church leader, how you respond to these changes will determine if your church giving will grow like 12-year-old Lebron James or rust out like an old junkyard card.

Do you want your church giving to increase with an optimized online giving page? Or do you prefer to stall and eventually make church budget cuts?

Let’s agree to enhance your church’s online giving, cool?

In this post, I’d like to share with you four proven strategies you can use to increase online giving in your church, and show you a few examples of how some churches added an online donation page to their website.

Let’s get started!

4 proven strategies to increase online donations

Observing bees can teach you a lot about increasing church giving online.

For full disclosure, I’m not a bee farmer.

But here’s what I know:

If you want to attract a swarm of bees, you have to use honey to attract them.

Obviously, this process is a bit more nuanced than what I’m leading on to believe, and you’re probably thinking, What does attracting bees have to do with online giving?

Simple.

To increase online church giving, you have to provide and promote online giving.

You don’t have to be fancy or overtly creative to increase church online giving.

Simply promoting what you have to offer (honey) will attract the people in your church who prefer to donate online or with their mobile device.

To help you get started, here are four proven strategies you can use:

Include a giving button
Make giving mobile-friendly
Use consistent branding
Optimize your giving page

Let’s take a look at these in detail.

1. Include a donation button

Your church website receives hundreds or thousands of visitors every month. Many of the people who visit your website are church members or people interested in supporting your ministry. Based on research, many of these people will be inclined to give to your church. In fact, we found that most giving actually takes place Monday through Saturday—not on Sundays.

Know how people give throughout the week?

Most of them make a donation online or with their mobile device.

Make it easy for people to donate to your church during the week by including a donation button on your church’s donation page. Many churches find it helpful to add a clickable “Give Now” button in the primary navigation bar of their website.

For examples, make sure to scroll below to see how many churches include an eye-catching donation button on their website.

Regardless of where you add a button to promote giving, be sure to highlight it in some way to create awareness.

2. Make your donation page mobile-friendly

When it comes to online giving, you may be missing out on one-half of your opportunities. As of 2017, more than half (51%) of global Internet traffic originated from a mobile device. Depending upon the demographics of your church, the number of people visiting your website from a mobile device may be higher or lower.

Not only are people visiting your church’s website from their mobile phone, but they’re also inclined to donate with their phone.

Mobile donation continues to increase year-over-year, and, according to The Millennial Impact Report, the number of millennials who want to give online is 84%.

With Tithe.ly, you’ll get a simple, clean, and mobile-friendly giving form.

Check out this example:

As the trend of online shopping, banking, and giving continues to climb, it won’t be long until most of the people in your church will donate with their mobile phone... so why not give them a free mobile giving app to use when giving to your church?

3. Use consistent branding

Branding can be somewhat of a taboo topic in the church. But when it comes to talking about online giving, branding actually plays an important part. Including elements of your church’s branding on your donation form—such as your logo and similar colors—will instill a sense of confidence in your online visitors. By making your donation form look similar to your church’s website, people will feel more comfortably making a donation.

Don’t believe me?

Check this out.

According to a study by Network for Good, they discovered that generic giving pages performed 66.7% lower than branded giving pages. What is more, Network for Good also observed a 38% increase in the average gifts made through branded giving pages.

Here’s the deal:

When people click on your page to make a donation, instead of leading them to a different site or third-party application, it’s best to keep them on your church’s website to increase the number of donations you receive.

Here’s an example of how you can create consistent branding:

Does your online giving form lead people to a different site or look different from your church’s site?

Switch to Tithe.ly.

Make your giving form look similar to your church’s site.

Then watch the number of people who visit your giving page and donate increase.

4. Optimize your donation form

Not every giving form is created equal. There are practical things you can do to make it more compelling for people to donate. Here are some best practices to keep in mind:

a. Clearly communicate

Think about the title you use on your giving page.

Be sure it clearly communicates what you want people to see and think.

b. Let people know about ways to give

You don’t have to be clever to encourage people to give.

Just letting people know about the ways to give can donate makes a big difference.

On your page, be sure to let everyone know how they can make a donation.

There are some great examples below on different ways you can do this.

This is a great example of telling and showing your church members how to give.

c. Make the donation page simple

Don’t make your donation page cluttered.

Focus on your main point (what’s called a call to action).

Keep things simple, clean, and pleasant to look at.

Interested in more tips on donation pages?

For more ways on how you can increase church donations, check out 9 Proven Strategies to Increase Online Giving in Your Church.

15 churches with great donation pages

Below are 15 churches who’ve added an online donation form to their donation page using Tithe.ly—one of the best online donation tools for small churches and large churches.

When you take a look at the donation page examples below, keep in mind the five best practices we just shared above. See how these churches clearly added a donation button, told a compelling story, or use consistent branding.

Rock Church

North Coast Church

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Oasis Family Life Church

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Higher Vision Church

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St. Peters Evangelical Lutheran Church

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Mercy City Church

C3 Los Angeles

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The San Diego Church of Christ

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Green Valley Church

Third Coast Church

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Freedom Church

Refuge Church

‍Grove Church

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Seattle Church of Christ

Canvas Church

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Ready to increase online donation amounts?

There are countless ways you can add a donate page for donors with Tithe.ly to your church's website.

Once you have these few steps down, it will make it easy for others to find your page and share your great donation page on social media. These same steps can be used for online fundraising and nonprofit donation also.

At a minimum, make sure you:

Include a donation button
Make giving mobile-friendly
Use consistent branding
Optimize your donation page

Remember, your donation page doesn't need to be flashy or complicated—just effective.

At Tithe.ly, we make sure to make online donations easy (and beautiful) and you can be up and running for free in the matter of minutes. Click here to sign up today.

More resources and tips about online giving for churches:

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Editor's note: This post was updated on May 11, 2020 for updates and comprehension.

Guide To Creating Awesome Online Donation Pages | Tithe.ly

Jesse Wisnewski