You are doing an incredible amount of extra work to compensate for an annual fund page that is letting you down.

You’ve spent months and years crafting cohesive and engaging branding for your annual fund and all of the parts that go into it. From appeals to stewardship, messaging, and more, you have worked tirelessly to ensure that each year is a success, but the secret is – you’re working hard to cover for an annual fund page that lets donors – big and small, slip away.

Recently, a friend of mine and an alum of a well-known independent school, told me about their giving experience (and, in doing so, inspired this article).

They told me that they had received an email from their alma mater telling the moving story of an alum who made a gift in honor of a friend who had recently passed away. Feeling moved by the story, my friend clicked the link to make a gift on their phone, fought with poor formatting and readability to fill out the form, and finally came to a transaction page that only accepted credit cards.

Unfortunately, they did not have their credit card nearby, so they said, “I’ll make my gift later,” but that later never came, and the moment was lost.

This is a common story – but it’s not the only one. Each year, your school misses out on donors because, no matter how hard you try – an annual fund page that is just “good enough” often isn’t.

That’s why, in this article, we’re going to discuss the ways that you can prevent your annual fund page from canceling out the hard work you put into every aspect of your annual giving experience.

The first and most critical aspect of providing a great and high-converting giving experience on your annual fund page is simply understanding what donors are looking for.  Thanks to the hard work of the researchers at the Lilly School of Philanthropy – it’s no longer a guessing game what your donors want from your annual fund.

In their research, three main themes came back:

Thankfully, these asks are very clear, and there is a wide variety of methods your team can use to ensure that you’re giving your donors what they’re looking for. In this article, we’re going to highlight a few of the main ways that many of the 100+ schools that utilize Boost My School have ensured that they have a giving page that doesn’t let them down.

Whether it’s at a live, in-person auction, at a reunion, or simply online – giving is always a social experience for your donors. It’s easy to forget when you’re building a webpage, but donors at all levels always want to feel like they are members of a winning team.

Unfortunately, far too often, we require our donors to find that feeling for themselves. And when we do that, we leave it up to chance whether our donors will feel connected enough to their school to make a gift.

This is particularly important for primary and secondary institutions as, very often, alums feel more connected to their college or university, and current parents can feel disconnected from the specific impact of their gift vs. their tuition payments.

Thankfully, engagement features like leaderboards, progress bars, and goals not only mitigate this challenge, but provide each and every donor with the distinct feeling of supporting a cause that so many of their peers also care for.

The return on investment for these tasks is no joke – not only does it help mitigate one of the main factors for decreased giving, but it can also lead to an increase in page engagement and giving.

But, the reality is that incorporating these features onto your annual fund page can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming, particularly for leaderboards and progress bars, so it’s understandable that some schools pass on them entirely.

That’s why, finding a partner that makes these tasks simple and automated is key. If you want to learn more about how Boost can make adding engagement features to your annual fund website page simple and easy, click here.

It’s no secret that social proof is one of the strongest ways to convince your constituents to make a gift. That’s why it should be integrated into every aspect of your messaging and giving experience. In fact, incorporating social proof into your outreach and messaging can lead to a 70% increase in the overall likelihood of giving.

However, while incorporating these donor comments and other stories into your communications is crucial, they are not one-size-fits-all. The story of an alum from the class of 86’ making a gift is very different and impacts very different groups of constituents than the story of a current parent making a gift to support their child.

Thankfully, the separation between current parent giving and alumni giving is relatively black and white. Theoretically, you would only need those two stories to cover a significant portion of your community.

Of course, (and unfortunately), people are not as straightforward.

The stories and sentiments that convince one member of the class of ‘86 to give, can differ greatly from their classmates’. Not only that, hearing the same story again and again in solicitations can get tiring and even irritating – two feelings that are certainly not conducive to giving.

So, either you and your team are forced to reach out to donors individually who you believe have a good giving story and insert all of them into your annual fund page, or you’re forced to settle for stories that are impactful, but not to a significant portion of your community.

That’s why with Boost, donor stories are automatically collected and published with each gift made to your page. Not only that, they’re searchable by class year, school affiliation, and constituent group.

Giving your donors reasons to give with engagement tools and social proof directly on your annual fund page is critical. Without them, you will see a significant drop-off in the overall participation in your annual fund and the general effectiveness of your outreach.

However, even the most engaging annual fund pages will let you down if you’re missing the single most fundamental key to your giving experience: convenience. The reality that annual fund leaders must contend with is that a bulk of your donors are making a gift simply because they want to in that specific moment.

Whether you caught their eye with a story, made them part of your team by adding leaderboards, or sent them a text-to-give solicitation when they had a free moment, ultimately they are giving because it was convenient.

Unfortunately, that convenience falls apart when your giving form makes it difficult or tedious for a donor to make a gift.

These struggles can manifest in many different ways, and one common rule of thumb to follow is that every additional step, from solicitation to completing your form, adds a significant amount of risk that a donor will decide not to give.

The same is true with a lack of payment options. On annual fund pages across the Boost platform, the statistics are consistent: 40% of all annual fund payments are made using modern payment options like Apple Pay (25%), Venmo (8%), and PayPal (7%). These numbers correspond to the 38% of donors who make a gift using a mobile device on an annual fund page.

While it is extremely difficult to know what percentage of these donors, like my friend, would not have made a gift had they not been given the option to use modern payment methods or had an unpleasant mobile experience (as we’ll discuss in the next section), declining annual fund donor numbers in recent years point to a trend.

It is critical that when a donor visits your annual fund page, they are shown an image of your institution that convinces them that their donation is a great investment into an exciting and growing community.

However, with ugly, unengaging forms, a lack of payment options, and poor design continuity, your annual fund page may be projecting an image of weakness, not strength (remember, donors want to support a winning team).

So, here are a few design and branding must-haves to ensure that your annual fund page doesn’t let you down. 

First, incorporating video elements is a must. Whether it’s content provided by your marketing team, interviews with current students and teachers, or user-submitted testimonial videos. Incorporating movement, excitement, and messaging into your annual fund page can lead to a significant bump in page engagement.

Second, ensure that every aspect of your annual fund is consistent with your school’s branding. From the color scheme of your form, to the logos on your page, every second someone spends on your annual fund page should feel cohesive and representative of the school they love. 

Lastly, and arguably most importantly, your annual fund page should be mobile-optimized. This is a step beyond mobile-friendly. With nearly 40% of all annual fund donors on Boost using mobile devices, it’s critical to ensure that your mobile experience is seamless from end to end.

The experience that your donors have on your annual fund page should increase the chances of a constituent making a gift, not decrease them. Unfortunately, far too many annual fund teams are forced to contend with pages that lack the features their donors are looking for. While it’s impossible to provide a perfect experience for every donor, ensuring that your annual fund page has the key ingredients for success is critical.

Interestingly, the blueprint already exists: giving days. For schools that have managed giving days in the past and leaned into a great donor experience you already have the formula for a wonderful annual fund. Ultimately, your donors should be excited and interested in making a gift all year round, not only on specific days.

While every day can't be treated like a giving day (how exhausting would that be?), your annual fund page should have the online, automatic capabilities of a giving day. From comments, to leaderboards, challenges and more, every time a constituent lands on your giving page, they're made more likely to make a gift.

That’s why, Boost My School’s annual fund page creator is built to automatically include and manage every engagement tool that your donors are looking for when it comes to an online giving experience.