Every visitor of your nonprofit website is a potential donor.

Get ready to turn passive supporters into donors with a donation experience that streamlines the checkout process. You can start with a simple and mobile-optimized checkout form, which we’ll walk you through below.

When it comes to creating donor-centric giving experiences that stand out, thousands of nonprofits lean on the Classy fundraising platform. As mobile traffic increases across our platform, many customers have been asking for embedded giving on their websites. Well, we’re excited to share that we’ve delivered through Classy Donation Modals.

What Is Embedded Giving?

Embedded giving experiences provide website visitors with a complete donation form without leaving your site for a separate donation page. Instead of needing to click to a separate donation page to start their transaction, they can begin right away on your home page.

Nonprofits can enable this experience for supporters through modal donation forms. If you’re unfamiliar with modals, HubSpot has a great explanation:

Placing a modal donation form on your website unlocks a quick embedded checkout experience in just four steps. Donors who participate in the streamlined, mobile-first process are more likely to remain engaged through a completed donation.

We developed Classy Donation Modals from standard Classy donation forms, so nonprofits get many of the same benefits they’re used to on the Classy platform, from branding to donor tracking.

The ROI Nonprofits Gain From Modals

When nonprofits focus on what modern donors want to see, they see results. Many Hopes turned to Classy Donation Modals to bring their own custom-giving experience to life for their supporters on any device they choose.

Here’s a glimpse at what Many Hopes achieved between December and April of 2021, and the same period in 2022:

56% YoY increase in donation volume53% YoY increase in individual donors$975 average gift size using the popular payment option, PayPal

We’ll walk you through some easy ways to set up your embedded giving experience so you can achieve similar results.

A good donor experience provides a great first impression. Delight new donors with embedded giving, and offer a reliable process that long-term supporters are happy to come back to. When you take away the confusion of where to navigate on your website for donations, you’ve already increased the chances for a completed transaction. Here are a few other tips to help you make the most of modals.

1. Hook Visitors With an Attractive Look and Feel

Modal donation forms feel modern and showcase the simplicity of the minimal-step process right away. Branding your donation modal to match your website helps donors feel like they’re never leaving that experience. The consistency also shows them that you’re professional and trustworthy.

It’s also helpful to include your donation modal alongside a strong narrative. Highlight the impact of your work and provide them an avenue right then and there to join your cause. As people become more passionate about what their donations are accomplishing, they may also be more likely to share it. Word-of-mouth is how 67% of donors were most likely to find out about new causes in 2021.

Quick Tip

When you’re building your donation modal, bring your brand to life. Mirror the look and feel of your website by selecting from your brand’s color palate and language, as Many Hopes did in the example above. You can set it up with a self-serve option, using very little code, so that it’s simple to get up on your site.

2. Empower Donors to Use the Device of Their Choice

It’s far less likely that donors would opt out of a donation opportunity when they feel familiar with the purchasing process. Think about the experiences surrounding donors daily with modern services and brands using intuitive apps. Now imagine you can offer donors a similar experience when they come across your site on their phones.

In 2021, most campaign types on Classy saw over half of the donor traffic come from a mobile device. Open your donation process to support mobile donors so you can capture all of the people who land on your page. It’s important to consider how easy it is to donate while people are balancing work schedules, travel, or other moments of their on-the-go lifestyles where a desktop is not accessible.

Quick Tip

Take a look at how much traffic your campaigns typically receive from mobile devices or tablets. Consider directing donor traffic from social media platforms or physical QR code advertisements to the page on which you embed your donation modal to continue the seamless mobile experience.

3. Make Payments a Breeze

Like consumers, donors light up when they see a way to save time with a trusted payment option. Modal donation forms sync up to apps that have likely already stored their information, such as PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Donors also told us that a top reason they would reconsider a donation is if their preferred payment option isn’t available.

People like easy. Boost conversion for mobile traffic by making it clear that you offer the mobile payment they want to use. Nonprofits saw mobile conversion improve by more than 2 points after activating Venmo on Classy Pay in 2022.

Different payment options also broaden your reach to audiences across younger generations. We saw that 72% of millennials selected PayPal and Venmo as their most preferred payment options. Those numbers demonstrate the value of simply having these logos greet them on your checkout modal.

Quick Tip

Include the payment options that your donors resonate with most. Elevate different gift amounts and frequencies to be accessible for varied financial situations. When you use Classy donation modals, you can feel confident donors have the most optimized user experience, avoiding payment fatigue.

4. Simplify Employer Matching

A donor is looking to make the most significant impact they can on your cause or a challenge you’re looking to solve. When you can offer to double their donation, that impact is even more enticing.

Employee donation matching encourages workplace giving. It also broadens awareness of your cause among larger organizations that can become corporate sponsors, volunteers, or major donors down the road.

Offering an employer donation match option on your donation modal gives donors a quick way to see if their organization can match their contribution. It can also be a great tool to prompt timely giving. Most visitors see the donation match as a window of opportunity to make the biggest difference toward your cause.

Quick Tip

Integrate a matching gift tool into your embedded checkout experience to prompt your donors to search for their employer to match their donations. Stay up to date on how Classy is offering more capabilities with partners like Double the Donation.

5. Bring Recurring Giving Opportunities Into the Spotlight

We already know donors love choices, but especially when their financial circumstances may shift, an option to automate a smaller gift over time can be appealing. Did you know 56% of donors feel a recurring gift enables them to continuously support the organization, and 47% like the option because it makes more of an impact?

A recurring donation option on your modal donation form puts the option right in front of donors who might not have known it was a possibility. Donation pages already bring in the most average recurring revenue; the opportunity to include regular giving on your donation modal can yield excellent results.

Quick Tip

Present your recurring gift option with various giving frequencies to appeal to any donor’s financial situation. Classy lets you offer monthly, weekly, daily, bi-weekly, quarterly, and annual options all on the same form. This way you can put the power in your donors’ hands, and the predictable income in yours.

Get Started With Embedded Giving on Classy

Are you ready to delight your donors with a modern giving experience? We hope you see the value in offering this simple option that only takes a few steps on your end to set up. Bring your website visitors into your donor community, and stay up to date on new donation modal updates from Classy to continue to raise more for your cause.