The best charity websites are kind to users – not overloading them with choices or too much text, and instead making calls to action obvious and ensuring that users can easily find further information as needed. Here are our top tips to improve your site:
More reading:
What Makes a Good Charity Website?
https://www.theukdomain.uk/what-makes-a-great-charity-website/
Gaming and livestreaming were already big before the pandemic struck but participation has really taken off. This is good news for charities because it gives us a new avenue for fundraising that appeals the generous Generation Z.
The idea may seem strange but gaming fundraisers are popular and effective https://fundraising.co.uk/2021/02/03/6-successful-gaming-for-good-livestreaming-campaigns/
How does it work?
Gamers share game playing with their friends and other gamers, who tune in to watch the game in action. This is called streaming and there are there are several platforms dedicated to gaming, the most popular is called Twitch, which was built specifically for streaming games. The gamer adds a donate buttons to their stream – like a donate button on a charity website which links to the gamer's fundraising page on a donation platform like JustGiving.
By hosting a donate button on screen, gamers engage their audience into making donations in return for gaming activity. A gamer could host a 24-hour gaming marathon or they could host a tournament with other gamers.
If you want your charity to run or help run a gaming fundraiser, try reaching out to local gaming communities or looking for gaming events that have occurred in your area. Maybe someone on your charity team (volunteer/supporter/member of staff) has a passion for video games, and they can help organise hosting or participating in a gaming fundraiser. Look for gamers who might be interested in your cause https://charitydigital.org.uk/topics/topics/gaming-for-good-how-to-find-gamers-9003
More Reading:
Top tips for successful livestreaming and gaming for good
How to Get Started with Gaming Fundraising
You know that you are doing good things and your beneficiaries agree with you - but the only way to prove it is to set targets and collect data.
To inform your supporters, partners and funders you must measure what kind of difference you are making. Measuring your impact is essential and ensures you are achieving what you set out to achieve.
If you're new to impact measurement then go to the Inspiring Impact website and read about the impact assessment process and best practice. The Small Charities Coalition have put together a list some free and low cost impact measurement tools for when you're ready to get started:
When did you last pick up your mobile phone?
When did you last use your phone to pay for something?
84% of the UK now own a smartphone - putting the internet in their pocket. On average people spend 2 hours and 34 minutes online on their smartphones every day. People can browse the internet, shop, view social media and download apps that allow them to do endless tasks.
It's not new, but the text-to-give process might be the answer for those charities looking for a safe, hygienic giving method that follows social distancing rules. It's a good option for donors too because it's quick, they use their own phones and they don't need to enter credit card information. Charities set up custom keywords preset to a specific donation amount and accept donations in a few quick steps.
£50 million was given in text donations in 2019, making it a serious fundraising contender as more and more people become comfortable using their phones to make payments.
To get started you need a text to donate service provider - have a look at the t&cs of Donr, Donate or instaGiv for more information.
https://merchantmachine.co.uk/digital-wallet/
https://charitydigital.org.uk/topics/topics/the-best-uk-charity-text-donation-services-5632
https://www.whitefuse.com/blog/text-to-donate-giving
Compass Group who are one of the UK’s top catering, hospitality, and business support providers, based in Chertsey, have been helping the local homeless with the donation of rucksacks.
Megan at Just a Helping Hand told us
“To have this amazing donation of rucksacks is honestly just incredible, and we are truly grateful.
We have many distributors who issue rucksacks to those who need them most. One such group is women who are released from prison. Many of these women being released are homeless and some come from domestic abuse situations. We take this into account when filling these rucksacks.
Can you imagine the feelings of these women when they open their rucksack and find such lovely things as a wash bag filled with deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrush, nail file, and lip balm. But there is much more – including a pack of new socks and underwear, a flask (with refill information for free at local outlets), hat, scarf and gloves, meal vouchers, and a small Bible.
Such an act of kindness makes such a difference to them from both a practical and an emotional point of view. It has been said to us that such generosity from a stranger provides a real sense of being cared for and thought about. This can ease anxiety, provide hope, help with depression and even remove thoughts of suicide”
March is Free Wills Month. More than half of UK adults don't have a will and this month it's possible to get a solicitor-written will in return for a small charity donation.
The publicity behind this campaign and Remember a Charity Week later in the year, is a great way for you to introduce/promote a legacy option in your fundraising messages. Here are the fundamentals to get you started:
Remember that as fundraisers you should be aware of the law - the Fundraising Regulator has the specifics regarding legacies https://www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/code/specific-fundraising-methods/legacies
You want to inspire and motivate your audience to get involved with your charity by posting great social media with valuable content. You need engagement, retweets, likes, shares, followers, and all the other good things that comes with a successful social media profile. So the question is, what kind of social media content gets that kind of love and gives you the most value?
Who is your audience?
This is a group of people that you've identified that you want to appeal to and who are most likely to be interested in your charity. Your audience can be based on location, age, employment or behavior. Look at other similar charities to yours. What content are they publishing? What kind of voice are they using? Who are they appealing to? What's their call to action?
What is your goal for the social media post/campaign?
Your social media posts should have a purpose - this is a call to action CTA. Do you need donations? Sign up to an email list? Volunteers? Publicising an event? Your call to action should encourage readers to engage with you further. Be clear what you want your audience to do.
What should you write?
We write about our successes, our beneficiaries, our volunteers, our community and we share local and national social media from partners and charities. Cause awareness and giving days can also be powerful themes for fundraising and social media awareness campaigns. Get ideas from 2021 Cause Awareness Days Days of the Year Wikipedia’s List of Commemorative Months and download the handy calendar template from Hootsuite for your office wall.
When should you post?
Different audiences on different platforms read posts and view videos at different times of the day. For example, commuters consume social media on their journey to work. Homeworkers may read posts in the middle of the day. Twitter audiences are consuming in the early morning and engagement drops off later in the day. Use the Sprout Socials guide to experiment with posting at different times on different platforms.
How do you make it visually attractive?
Including images is one of the fastest and easiest ways to increase engagement. Our brain can interpret images much quicker than text making your post much more effective. Top tip - make your images the correct size for the platform! We use a free version of an easy to use graphic design platform called Canva and Hootsuite have a guide to getting the sizes right. Remember to use images that belong to you or those from a royalty free site - we use pixabay or unsplash
Finally ... make it easy
Posting diverse, interesting content at the right time on the right platform is made much easier by using a scheduling tool. We use Hootsuite. It allows us to plan our content in advance and schedule appropriately across 3 platforms for free. Read about Hootsuite and other scheduling options here.
These days, funders look at your website when you make an application. This is your window to the outside world and it should be current, easy to find, and up to date.
Good website content can:
Make sure that who you are and what you do is up-to date. Be prepared for funders to check out your website for background information about your projects, beneficiaries and services.
Show the impact of your organisation's work. Create a space on your website where you feature content that describes work you’re doing, whether in the form of statistics, video, photos, testimonials, stories, or a combination of them all. A variety of content will create compelling impact pages.
Images get your audiences attention - studies show that people only remember 10% of what they hear once 72 hours have passed. However, if you pair a relevant image with your material, people can remember 65% of the information after three days. Humans process images at an incredible speed which makes them the perfect way to communicate in today’s short-attention world.
Read The Beginners Guide to Nonprofit Website Content for content inspiration