Hello Indiana, You have reached the final lesson and I want to finish this course by looking at some new trends. They'll soon change how not-for-profit groups do online fundraising. They'll affect donation pages in particular.
We start with the elephant in the room, AI.
How AI Will Shape Online Donating
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionize the way donation pages function. It will enable personalized experiences and more efficient donation processing. With AI the donation process can become a lot more conversational. This will allow donors to interact with virtual assistants. They can address objections. They can answer questions. They can even guide them through the donation process.
AI will also help with personalization. It will let donation pages adjust. They can change their content, design, and calls-to-action. This will be based on each donor's unique preferences, interests, and behavior.
Interestingly, AI may end donation pages. Instead, the process will move into pages across the whole site.
Integrated Donation Widgets
We're already seeing the rise of integrated donation widgets. They let users donate directly from any page on a website. People don't have to go to a separate donation page. This will become more common as charities seek to lower friction and make giving more accessible to website visitors.
Not only will the mechanism of how we will donate change, the ask itself could well evolve.
New Ways to Donate
I have already talked about the idea of "give more tomorrow," where donation collection is delayed to coincide with pay rises. But that's just the tip of what is possible.
For example, the rounding up of transactions in retail are beginning to be applied to online donations. It would let donors round up their purchases or payments online to the nearest dollar, with the extra going to a preferred charity.
Using systems like open banking this would even be possible irrespective of the site the user is visiting. This would provide a seamless, integrated donation experience across the entire web.
Even these ideas are tip of the iceberg.
Other Possibilities
There is so much space for innovation in online donation processing. Just a few of the other approaches that are already emerging include:
Integrated Social Media Contributions. Allow donors to see and engage with their friends' donations through social media integrations. For example, showing that a user's Facebook friends have donated to the same cause can create a sense of community and encourage more donations.
Voice-Activated Donations. Donations could be made through voice commands to devices like Amazon Alexa or Google Home. This would make the process even easier.
Gamified Donations. Incorporate gamification elements to make the donation process more engaging and rewarding. For example, donors could unlock badges. They could also reach milestones or see progress bars.
Subscription-Based Giving. Donors get regular updates, exclusive content, or other benefits in return for their ongoing support.
Real-Time Impact Tracking. Give donors real-time updates. Updates will show how their donations are being used. They might be live feeds or dashboards showing project progress.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Enhancements. Donors can create and share their own fundraising pages directly from the charity website. They can use their pages to ask their networks to contribute.
These digital fundraising innovations will likely change the donation experience. They will make it more personal, easy, and fun for donors. However, there is much to be done first.
Walk Before We Run
These cutting-edge technologies and bold ideas for the future of donation pages can be extremely seductive. But, in truth, there is so much we've got to do to improve the conversion rate simply by getting the fundamentals right.
Instead of buying the latest technology, we need to focus on making the current experience as smooth as possible. Then, we should build from there.
As these trends emerge, not-for-profits will need to balance innovation with user-centered design. They will also need to focus on optimized conversion funnels, not shiny tech.
Congratulations!
And so we've come to the end of this course on improving the conversion rate of your donation pages. Congratulations on getting this far. I hope you found it helpful, and as always, feel free to email me if you have any questions.
But this isn't goodbye. I have many more tips I can share with you. You will get emails from me every couple of weeks. They will have advice on user experience design, conversion optimization, and digital leadership.
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