How forms can make your nonprofit organization more effective

The adoption of virtual nonprofit fundraising has been debatable for some time now. The COVID-19 restrictions and acquisition of online fundraising software opened up new opportunities. Nonprofit organizations now have options for digital fundraising.

When evaluating the popularity of online donations, statistics show that online revenue increased by 23%. That’s an increase from 15% in the last year. This means that your organization is missing out on a major recurring revenue boost if you don’t have an online presence. It’s a big loss if you don’t have a streamlined way to collect online donations.

A donation form is the foundation of a nonprofit’s online fundraising efforts. For that reason, forms should get optimized for driving donations. There should also be a streamlined user experience and intuitive design.

Using Online Forms to Make Your Nonprofit Organization More Effective

Nonprofits today face common challenges in their operations. Some of the challenges include:

• Finding and retaining donors
• Promoting brand awareness
• Competing for inadequate resources
• Getting volunteers
• Insufficient budgets

By embracing technology, nonprofits will get rid of some of the challenges they face. Let’s take a look at how forms can make nonprofits more effective.

1 - Expanding your audience and providing access to donor data

It’s easy to share online donation forms. That’s because all you need to do is copy and paste the link. 

Because of its convenience, you can easily incorporate it into your digital marketing for nonprofit strategy. As we’ve stated above, creating an online presence is crucial in today’s market. Digital marketing helps bridge that gap so that more people will be aware of your nonprofit. 

You can also integrate your giving page into your social media marketing posts. Aside from that, you can also incorporate the giving page into your website blog posts.

Using a robust online fundraising platform to build a donation page enables you to track donor data. You can do this while supporters complete their online donation pages. This data has information about the donation amount. It also includes the highest volume donation day. You can also use the data to improve future fundraising efforts.

Beginning from your peer-to-peer campaigns to your text-to-give initiatives. But you’ll need to ensure that your form is optimized from every angle. This will enable you to see the best fundraising results.

2 -Recruiting, registering, and scheduling volunteers

Online forms make it easy for nonprofit organizations to recruit new volunteers. You can embed the forms on your website and send them in an email to your network. You can even choose to post them on your social media platforms.

In any case, a lot of form builders allow you to combine volunteer forms with email services. This makes sending out the forms via email much easier.

In addition to standard contact information, you can collect data on interest. This will enable you to correctly match volunteers to specific organizational projects. 

3 - Registering attendees for events and growing your mailing list

Nonprofit organizations can use online forms to generate event registration forms. You can also use the forms to send fundraiser invitations and track the guest list. With the event registration form, you can collect payments for tickets or donations.

Like with volunteer sign-up forms, you can embed registration forms on your website. You can also send out the forms via email to your mailing list and share them on social media.

Remember that you’ll need to collect email addresses from interested parties. These are individuals who want to get updated on the work your organization is doing. People signing up for your email list using the opt-in form enables you to keep them updated. You can update them on:

• Fundraising campaigns
• Volunteer recruitment efforts
• Upcoming events 

4 - Mobile-friendly donation forms

Many people today use mobile phones to access the internet. This means that if your giving page isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be alienating a large number of supporters. So ensure that your page is mobile-friendly by:

• Make sure your images load appropriately in the mobile view
• Use a font size and type that’s easy to read
• Remove pop-up messages or adverts
• Ensure you have a simple page design

There are cases when you click a link on a social media post and you’re sent to a site that’s not optimized for mobile screens. You don’t want people having that experience on your donation page. Optimizing the donation form for smartphones helps you to get the attention of all.

5 - It makes it easy for people to contact you

It’s important to note that as a nonprofit, you’ll need a contact form on your website. An accessible contact form encourages the public to reach out to your organization. It also creates a sense of openness and approachability.

To create an online donation form, ensure that there are fields for just the name and email address. You can also make it more engaging with additional fields that have encouraging comments.

It’s also recommended that you include a line of copy on the “Contact Us” page. This should state when people can expect to hear from you after submitting the contact form.

6 - Planning for what happens after the donations

Nonprofits have a great opportunity once an online donation has been made. The donor has decided to invest in you financially and this is an emotional high point for them. Unfortunately, organizations do little to give donors that warm feeling after the donation.

Note that there are two major ways you can take advantage of this moment. First, it’s by the confirmation page and the second is by email. You must carefully think about how to use these post-donation “touches” to better the relationship with new donors.

Let the donors know how their donations will be used. You can also invite them to the next event that you’ll be holding. Also, ask them to share information on social media about why they choose to support you.

7 - Survey donors

Does your organization want to conduct donor-satisfaction surveys? The use of forms will help you achieve that. Donations and monthly giving programs are the backbones of nonprofit organizations. But, note that feedback from donors is equally important.

After a nonprofit marketing campaign, send a survey via an online form to donors. This survey is meant to gather comments and insights. The data collected should be used to improve your next nonprofit marketing campaign.

Undertaking the survey serves to show donors that you care about their opinion. As a result, you increase the chances of getting more gifts and leads to new donors.

The use of online forms can replace the dull and time-consuming paperwork. This gives you and your team more time to carry out your mission.

Conclusion

Nonprofit organizations need to manage people and data. That’s because the two keep organizations running despite the challenges. Everybody and everything is crucial from the staff, volunteers, and donors. All these can get overwhelming.

Thus, you must find a solution that will make your operations much easier and more effective. That solution is an online form builder, like forms.app, which will help you to create online forms easily and effectively. This tool makes it easier to collect, handle, organize, and store data.