Let Donors Make Gifts Securely in Less Than a Minute: a Key Fundraising Strategy

You’ve done the work to reach out to donors. They’ve engaged in a call, with an email, a direct mail piece, or a text. Now it’s time to give. So, let me ask you a question:

Once they’re ready, can your donors make a gift, securely, in less than a minute?

If you can’t answer yes to this question, you’ve got some work to do. When we make it hard to give, we definitely lose donors, and it’s also horrible donor service. Luckily, the technology to provide a great donor experience is now easier and more cost-effective than ever.

Here are three new ways that you can make giving easier, and book more gifts, immediately.

1. Turn phone conversations into gifts, securely, with tone capture

Many organizations have needed to move their donor outreach to a remote environment, including moving student engagement ambassadors in their digital engagement center to work from home. This brings up key PCI compliance and security questions, including a critical one: how will ambassadors actually accept gifts over the phone? There are a few solutions, but the gold standard is “tone capture.”

With tone capture, when the donor is ready to give, the caller prompts them for the key numbers and the donor enters them into the phone keypad. This is captured via a tokenized, encrypted system that the student ambassador never even hears. That’s right—no human ever even gets the numbers. They’re transmitted securely to the payment processors and the ambassador receives real-time confirmation.

2. Texting a donor your custom giving page connects the conversation and makes it easy to give

Would you rather drive confirmed pledgers to complete their gift online? If you have the right integrated technology like RNL Engage, it’s an easy two-step process.

1. During your conversation (or right after, if you prefer), you to send a customized text right to the number you’re speaking on.
2. This link contains a URL which can even preserve an appeal code and pledge amount in the code.
3. The donor is sent to a custom “evergreen” (always on) page, to complete their gift quickly and easily. (We host these in the RNL ScaleFunder platform.)

Branding this custom page for your phone contact is really smart—it keeps the donors in the flow of the conversation and makes completing the gift a natural process.

A plus side to this method is that your donors will also now find it easier to give to future crowdfunding campaigns, when you ask. Their information will already be entered into RNL ScaleFunder and giving will be even quicker in the future.

3. Accept gifts through PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay with a Digital Wallet

If you want to make giving lightning-fast, then adding Digital Wallet to your checkout is the answer. This technology allows donors, once they’ve chosen a giving option, to pay with any of the major payment technologies installed on their device. Just the way we check out when ordering food or buying things these days—that means Paypal, Apple Pay, Venmo, Google Pay, and so on. And you don’t need to set up separate accounts for these services, the funds come directly to you through your normal online gift processing.

You can complete a gift in less than 30 seconds with digital wallet, and it’s a real donor service investment. Digital Wallet is fully implemented in ScaleFunder pages through our preferred provider, Braintree. The system allows for recurring giving, and even crypto donations if the donor has their coins tied to Paypal.

You’ve got a great message, now make it easy and fun to give

These technologies are a crucial component to your fundraising strategy. In a time where getting donor’s attention, and competition with other causes is really challenging, we can’t afford the final component of a gift to be a hassle. Reach out for a free consultation and we’ll go through your current giving options to come up with creative ways to reduce friction for donors, and get more gifts in the door to support your mission.

Transform donor engagement with RNL Engage

Connect with donors the way they want to interact with you: through texting, email, video, and calling, to create continuous, ongoing engagement. RNL Engage makes it easier than ever to manage outreach at scale and create instant opportunities for donors to give.

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