Put two donate pages side by side. Both get the same kind of visitor from the same kind of email, and one of them raises several times what the other does. The difference is never the color scheme. It is the default amount, the length of the form, whether a monthly option exists, whether the page says who you are, and what it does about fees.
This post is about those decisions. The reasoning behind suggested amounts and named funds is in how to take donations on your website, so it is not repeated here.
The default amount is the most important number on the page
Three or four buttons, one of them pre-selected. Most people take the pre-selected one, so it is not a design detail, it is your average gift. Set it at what you would be pleased with from a first-time donor.
Next to each amount, one line of what it does: "$25 feeds a family for a week", "$100 covers one tutoring session a month for a semester". A number attached to an outcome gets chosen more than a number on its own.
The form asks for four things
Amount, name, email, card. That is the whole form. Every extra question is a reason to stop, and a donor who stops to think about whether they want to give you their phone number has stopped thinking about the cause.
Address, phone and newsletter can be asked in the thank-you email, from a person who has already given. The one exception is a fund choice, when you have two or three named funds; that is a question people like being asked.
A monthly option, on the same form
"Make this a monthly gift" as a checkbox, next to the amount, with the same buttons. Not a separate page, not a different form, not a smaller set of amounts. The only visitor who will ever consider a monthly gift is one already deciding to give, on this page. Monthly giving for a small nonprofit goes into how to ask.
Say who you are, on the page itself
A donor on your site is trusting you with a card number and a cause. Three things settle that trust in seconds, and most small nonprofit donate pages have none of them:
- Your legal name and EIN. Under the form, in small text. Anyone who wants to check you can do it against the IRS record; the IRS itself tells donors that to confirm a charity's status "they can use the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool", in its year-end giving reminder. Make that check easy.
- A link to your financials. Your latest Form 990 or a one-page summary of where the money went. The page the link goes to is covered in the pages a small nonprofit site needs.
- A sentence about the receipt. "You will get a receipt by email straight away" removes the small worry about whether this will count at tax time. The IRS lists what that acknowledgment needs to contain on its written acknowledgments page: your name, the amount, and a statement about goods or services. More on that in donor receipts and thank-you emails.
The fees question
Card processing costs money, and the question is who pays it. The honest answer is to ask the donor: a checkbox that adds the processing cost to the gift so you receive the full amount. Most people leave it checked when it is phrased as covering the fee rather than as a surcharge.
Two other things reduce the bill. Stripe offers discounted processing fees to eligible nonprofits where "at least 80% of your Stripe payment volume comes from tax-deductible donations", and you have to ask for it through their support form with your tax documentation; it is not applied automatically. A bank transfer or check costs nothing to receive, so offer them for larger gifts.
One page, found from everywhere
The donate page is one page. Not a donate section on the home page plus a different one on the programs page plus a campaign page with its own form. Every "Donate" button on the site points at it, and so do the email appeals.
In Webkio the donate block does the above out of the box: suggested amounts with a pre-selected default, a custom amount, a monthly checkbox, a fund picker, the cover-the-fee option and an automatic receipt, paid into your own Stripe account, with bank transfer and check as offline options. The nonprofit templates ship with the block already on a /donate page.
FAQ
How many suggested amounts should a donate page have?
Three or four. Fewer gives people no sense of what is normal; more turns a decision into a survey. Pre-select the middle one and attach a one-line outcome to each.
Should the donate form ask for a mailing address?
Not on the form. It is a reason to stop at the moment that matters most. If you need it for a mailed thank-you, ask in the receipt email, where the donor has already decided.
Is it rude to ask donors to cover the processing fee?
Not when it is offered as a choice and phrased as covering the fee so the full gift arrives. Most people leave it checked. A surcharge added without asking is a different thing, and donors notice.