{"id":7192,"date":"2010-12-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.causevox.com\/?p=229"},"modified":"2024-05-08T19:07:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T19:07:00","slug":"how-to-create-a-donation-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/how-to-create-a-donation-page\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create a Fundraising Page: Best Practices for Donation Pages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This week we host <a href=\"https:\/\/about.me\/markchou\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mark Chou<\/a>, a guest blogger and recent RestoreNYC advocate. He&#8217;s here to share with you details on what makes fundraising pages effective.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In supporter-driven fundraising, supporters are the key to raising funds and awareness. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/digital-fundraising\/\">Online, we use fundraising pages<\/a> to make this happen. Supporters are able to weave their own story into the non-profit&#8217;s story. This personal appeal on their fundraising page helps their friends and family connect to the non-profit at a more personal level.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few tips, written for supporters, to help them craft effective personal appeals on their page.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>State the purpose<\/strong> \u2013 Describe the campaign or non-profit clearly and note what action you want the reader to take.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Make it personal<\/strong> \u2013 Write to your personality and fill it with passion. Don\u2019t make fundraising just about fundraising. Make it about being human. Explain why the cause matters to you personally.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Show your gratitude<\/strong> \u2013 Show people that you appreciate their support. Update this message with a big thank you at the end of the campaign, or thank donors individually.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Call to action<\/strong> \u2013 Tell people the one or two things you want them to do. Make this very clear.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be concise<\/strong> \u2013 Messages that are 175 to 225 words in length work the best.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Use Events<\/strong> \u2013 Have a birthday coming up? Is the holiday season close by? Instead of asking for gifts, ask for donations to your cause!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Below are two personal appeals written by two of the top fundraisers within <a href=\"https:\/\/restorebbb.causevox.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restore NYC&#8217;s Brick by Brick campaign<\/a>. Let&#8217;s examine the appeals to see how they wrote it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Personal Appeal #1:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Hello friends,<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Personal greeting<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Please join me in helping to rescue our sisters and provide them a safe house they can live in, here in our great neighborhood of New York City.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Clearly stated purpose and call to action<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">From Sunday August 22nd to Thursday September 30th, Restore will be running a 40-day campaign called \u201cBrick by Brick\u201d to fund the first year of operation for a safe house for international survivors of sex trafficking. The funds raised at our March, 2010 Gala brought us much closer to the level of funding needed to open and operate a safe house; now help us close the gap by becoming a first-time donor so that we can provide a full year of residential services to survivors in the city!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Expanded on the purpose. Articulated the urgency. Made it more personal.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">The exciting news: if we are able to raise $50,000 from NEW donors by the end of September, we have an anonymous donor that will match the $50,000 goal!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Added incentive to donate<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">So if you have already donated, please set up a fundraising page and encourage others to give creatively. If you haven\u2019t donated, please consider helping us during this important campaign. This safe house has been the focus of Restore\u2019s mission from its inception, and with your help, we can make it a reality!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Close with a clearly stated purpose and call to action.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Gratefully,<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Display of gratitude<\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>Personal Appeal #2:<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Friends,<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Personal greeting<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">This year, when I was deciding how to celebrate my birthday, I thought that it&#8217;d be great to fundraise for a great organization doing meaningful work. I picked one called Restore NYC. I also decided that I would be matching the total donations made on my campaign page, up to $2,400, so please consider giving!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Personalization of the cause. Added incentives to donate. Use of an event.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">With all the non-profits out there, though, why did I choose to support Restore NYC?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">First of all, they&#8217;re doing very important work in New York City (where I live now) for issues that matter. Restore, which combats sex trafficking in New York City, is now planning on opening the city&#8217;s first &#8220;safe house&#8221; for sex-trafficking survivors, and this campaign was set up to fund the safe house for a full year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Secondly, I wanted to make sure that I was not just asking people to donate to a random organization that I didn&#8217;t have a real tie to. Restore has a strong link to the church I attend in New York, and several of my friends have worked for or collaborated with Restore. This campaign is my way of joining them in that work.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Finally, the ability to support a smaller organization doing impactful work has always been important to me. There are many large non-profits with big donor pools, but what about the smaller guys who don&#8217;t have that same access? And as a bonus, each dollar you contribute will be matched by an anonymous donor, so your $10 becomes $20, just like that!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Stated purpose. Articulated the urgency. Made it personal.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">So will you join me in supporting Restore NYC to celebrate my birthday in September? Since I will be turning 24 this year, my goal is to raise $5,000 towards the goal of $50,000. Every $30 goes to support one day of operations for a new safe house!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Close with a clearly stated purpose and call to action.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\">Thank you!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 13.2px;\"> Display of gratitude<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><em>Download the 7 Habits of Effective Personal Fundraisers to read more about being the best fundraiser possible.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week we host Mark Chou, a guest blogger and recent RestoreNYC advocate. He&#8217;s here to share with you details on what makes fundraising pages effective. In supporter-driven fundraising, supporters are the key to raising funds and awareness. Online, we use fundraising pages to make this happen. Supporters are able to weave their own story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Team CauseVox","author_link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/author\/teamcausevox\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}