Charities Look for Ways to Improve Internet Giving Rates

As online giving grows, some nonprofit groups are trying to learn more about what works best — and why.

Even though the Trust for Public Land, a conservation group in San Francisco, raises a relatively small amount of money

on the Internet — $187,119 in 2004 — the group tries to approach its online fund raising the same way it does direct mail, says Darlene Bellucci, the trust’s annual-fund director.

“We are always testing,” says Ms. Bellucci. “We’re always looking for the response. We’re always looking at the dollars.”

Right now, the organization is seeking the best way to use e-mail as part of its effort to persuade donors to give again, examining how it should promote monthly giving to new online donors, and figuring out whether sending e-mail messages tailored to the donor’s home state will lift response rates.

Many of the tests that the Trust for Public Land conducts are not large enough to be statistically significant, but Ms. Bellucci believes they can help her make better decisions now and are laying an important foundation for the future.

“We are able to make some deductions that seem sound,” says Ms. Bellucci. “You want to know and learn now so that you’re poised and ready as it grows.”

‘Conversion Rates Stink’

That emphasis on testing, however, is the exception rather than rule, say fund-raising consultants.

“Most groups are still sending out appeals, seeing what happens, and making some money here and there, but it’s not particularly strategic,” says Madeline Stanionis, vice president of Donordigital, a fund-raising and advocacy consulting company in San Francisco.

One statistic more charities should move quickly to find out, say fund-raising consultants: the proportion of people who come to the donation section of a charity’s Web site and do not make a gift.

“Conversion rates stink across the board,” says Rick Christ, president of Npadvisors.com, a consulting company in Warrenton, Va.

At some nonprofit Web sites as few as 1 to 2 percent of the people who visit a site’s donation page actually make a gift, he says. The goal of a good donation page, he says, is to “close the sale.” It is not the time, he says, to give would-be donors a lot of options, like the opportunity to send a message to their member of Congress.

CARE USA, an international relief and development organization in Atlanta, increased the percentage of visitors to its donation pages who make a contribution by streamlining the giving process.

One step the organization eliminated was the confirmation page, where donors were asked to review their information before completing the gift. The page gave people an opportunity to rethink their decision to give, and if donors didn’t read carefully or see the “submit” button, it might have led some to think that they had already completed their contribution, says Toby A. Smith, the organization’s Internet strategist.

But, he says, making a charity’s donation section as effective as possible may mean different things to different types of charities.

Because donors who agree to make monthly gifts typically give more over time than donors who make contributions one at a time, CARE has decided to keep a link on its giving pages to information about recurring gifts, even though highlighting that option probably drives down the percentage of donors who make a gift, says Mr. Smith.

“It’s not as simple as saying I’m just going to maximize my conversion rate,” says Mr. Smith. “You may have things that you want to say, or that you have to say, to folks that may lower that.”