For the time being, I'll offer some advice on your donation page. If you have one or two pages where you solicit funds
for your organization, or for a specific cause, wouldn't you want those pages to work as hard as possible? Of course! So,
take a look at your "money pages" with these tips in mind:
1. Focus - Keep your visitor's mind on donating money and only on donating money. Follow this advice by removing the
buttons, banners, and other text that clutters the page.
2. Suggestions - Offer a suggested amount and two or three alternatives. Again, do not try to recruit volunteers here
or get subscribers to your newletter.
3. Benefits - Restate the most important benefit of the project or the organization here. Include statistics or a testimonial
if at all possible.
4. Security - Reassure people that their online donations are being submitted safely and securely.
5. The premium - If you offer donors a CD, a book, or anything else for donating do put a reminder on
the donation page.
6. Involvement device - Ask visitors to click a box proclaiming their support for the organization or cause or project
in question: "Yes, I want to help entrepreneurs in Mali start their own small businesses and secure their financial
futures."
You can apply all of these tips yourself, or just hire an expert. You can use htose six tips for donation pages,
pages that solicit in-kind contributions, and pages that promote a behavior, such as signing an online petition.
Do you sell products or services to generate revenue? Focus, benefits, and security are going to be particularly important
on those pages.
I'll close with an example of an involvement device:
Print this page. Use the page as a checklist while you study the relevant pages on your organization's Web site.
Do you see room for improvement?
