- Today we're talking about how to use online tools
to boost charitable donations, here, on The Journey.
- It'll just cost you, five dollars.
The tips are worth it, I swear.
(laughing)
- Got change for a 20?
So where do we start, where to begin?
- So first off, why attract donations online?
- Why? - I mean it might be
kind of an obvious answer.
You reach a larger audience, get more money.
- Get more money, keep it going.
- Where's that money gun when we need it?
- Right. - But yeah, you can reach
a large audience, you can reach people all across the world
to donate towards your charitable cause.
So that's one very powerful reason
why you'd want to specifically do this online.
- Yeah, you're exactly right.
Like having it online, reach that bigger audience,
but it's also way more convenient, cause I mean,
we just went through it,
you didn't have cash on you, most people don't carry cash.
And having an online portal just makes it super convenient.
You can pay with PayPal, there's Venmo,
there's all different things.
- Also, manageability, that's another great thing
about being online.
You can see when a new donation comes in,
which is really great, whether you want to share
that information or put it on your website.
And also just to get information on who
your donations are coming from.
- Right, and with all that automation and those reports
and updates you can essentially manage
all of your donations in one place.
And you can like export to your Excel spreadsheet.
There's no more counting cash and have that
whole nonsense of a system.
It's all done for you, all automatically,
which just makes life easy.
- Another factor, longevity.
We've seen it over the past 20 years, how much
consumers and businesses rely about the online world,
whether it's their website
or how they receive a payment.
And I actually have a real good example,
I was looking at some different donations.
One thing we do at GoDaddy is they give us,
as employees, money to put towards a great cause.
And some things that have really been
top of mind and important to me,
is nature and what's going on with our oceans.
How can we clean them up?
So we can keep gettin' pitted!
So I have an example here of a,
this is called Ocean Cleanup.
- [Nealey] I've heard of it.
- Yeah and look it, what's right at the top of the screen?
- [Nealey] Get on board, take ocean cleaning
into your own hands. - [Emma] Yeah!
It's the first thing you see, so it's very,
well it's easy for you to donate, one.
But it's that call to action I love.
And then they have this live video
that's going on which is super engaging,
not just a bunch of text where you're like,
look I know there's pollution in the ocean,
but do I need to read all this?
It showing you, which is a major effect.
And it goes into what their mission is,
to clean up 90% of ocean plastic pollution.
So I love the way this is designed.
And then you can even have clickable links
to just learn more about the cause.
Because to get people to give you money,
you know you gotta get them behind it, right?
So educating them on why you're doing what you're doing.
Whether it's something as vast and large
as cleaning up our oceans.
Or maybe it's a really small cause
in your local community, either way.
- I do love that they have at the top of their site
is that, support us, right in their navigation.
That likely links over to how to donate
and how to buy merchandise.
There it is.
- [Emma] Yeah, it's like you knew that.
Have you been to this site?
- [Nealey] Once or twice.
- [Emma] Yeah it's rad, right?
- [Nealey] It's pretty cool.
- [Emma] And also you'll notice, here I'm going to go
to the bottom, follow us: Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn.
Which we talk about all the time,
the importance of having these social links on your site
to help get the word out,
which is going to help you in the online world
to get more donations for your charitable cause.
- Now that we know that it's obviously super important,
how do we get started?
- Well one thing I wanted to tell you,
cause this is super impressive and I think will motivate
the viewers at home, is that on average,
when it comes to consumers and looking at
the activities there, we're seeing an average
of 264 marketing impressions per day.
- That is insane. - It's a lot.
And that means that it's overstimulated
with sites and sounds just vying for
their attention and wallets.
- It's a lot of competition and just way too much
coming at them all the time, to where they almost
become numb to all the ads coming at them.
- But for that reason alone, you need to be smart
about how you're going about your charitable cause,
your nonprofit, you gotta be smart about
what you're doing, how you craft,
how you publish your message to potential supporters.
Although the digital channels out there,
whether that's blogs, websites, social media,
it's made it super easy to spread the word.
- Absolutely. - And with that,
I gotta say, yes spreading the word is easier,
but get your story in place first,
because that's what's gonna get people to be passionate
and get them to be moved enough to take out their wallets
and support your cause.
Cause there's a ton of stuff that you could
put your money towards out there.
Sometimes it's overwhelming.
- Right, and now what is it about the story
that these business owners and nonprofit organizations
need to like really get down?
- Yeah, so to tell your story effectively,
and I want to show you an example, think about it.
What makes your story unique?
Also, who's your target audience?
That's gonna help with the verbiage and the messaging
that you have across these channels,
websites, social media, and your blog as well.
So what is it about my cause that matters?
And I want to go back to this example
of the Ocean Cleanup that we were talking about earlier.
So when you click on, about, I can go here
and go to about us, and they have a video for one.
Which videos are really, we prefer that, right?
- [Nealey] They're engaging.
- [Emma] They're engaging.
They go into how they were founded,
but this is what I love.
They go into the big problems that are happening.
Big problems out there, what do they need?
They need big solutions.
- [Nealey] Right, and I think that I would go
probably a step further too.
Not necessarily why it's passionate for you,
but how it impacts them and their world.
- Yeah, that's a great point.
- There is a ton of problems throughout all of life,
and all the world, right?
But why does this one problem affect them?
If you can articulate that in your website,
your messaging, our social, and everywhere
you're promoting your organization,
that's where you're gonna win.
That's where you're gonna turn them from,
oh yep that's a problem, to oh that's my problem.
Now they're more apt to help.
- And that actually segues beautifully
to this part, cause they break down
environment, economy, and health.
So one of those is going to get your attention.
I mean health for me, especially.
Plastic pollution, it doesn't only just impact sea life,
it impacts our food chain.
So that's you and I.
So that's where, that's a great point,
thanks for bringing that up.
And, kudos to this website for doing exactly that.
- [Nealey] And one thing I'm noticing,
especially on this site here, is that they make it
incredibly easy to donate.
Now, when I go to a website and there's no clear direction
of where I'm supposed to go, I kinda flounder
and I probably go places that that site owner
didn't want me to go.
And I end up wasting my time, wasting their time.
You need to make those donate buttons front and center.
So I would highly recommend, exactly like they did,
upper right, have some sort of button.
They have, support us.
You could have, donate.
You could have it whatever you want it to be,
that call to action, have it always there.
So no matter where they're at on that page,
there's an option for them to donate.
And they have it littered all throughout their page,
a bunch of calls to action to donate, or support,
or even sign up for their newsletter.
Even if someone doesn't donate for you now,
but they sign up for your newsletter,
you can then let the into your world,
let them into the story and give them
updates and progress, things like that.
And then they're more likely to donate.
And once they've donated once,
their wallets are already open
and they're more likely to donate again and again and again.
- And, I know for one of the times I recently donated
it made it really easy to share on Facebook
that I just donated.
And so make it shareable too.
So with social media, that's a great way.
I clicked, share to Facebook, cause I felt really good
about what I was doing; I was donating.
And then my friends and family see it,
it might just be what they need to be inspired
to also donate towards your charitable cause.
- These days, with most of the most popular site builders
out there today, they have some sort of easy
donate options for you to just add on
to your site with a couple clicks of the button.
You link it over to PayPal or Stripe or Square.
It makes it easy for someone to pay with
a credit card or directly on PayPal,
whatever is easiest for them.
Remember it's about making it convenient to your audience.
If you're using a platform like WordPress,
there are tons of WordPress plug ins
out there that you can use.
I know givewp is a really, really popular one out there
and they're really embedded into the WordPress community.
They do a lot with just charitable nonprofits
and giving back.
So if you use WordPress, I'd highly recommend
checking them out.
If you use a site builder, chances are
they have a tool that's gonna be in there for you.
Just make that experience super easy for you.
- So consider a mix of blog posts,
social media, and email marketing, also
- Video marketing, there's online reviews.
Think about all the different tools that you could use
to really boost, essentially the attention
of your organization to get that those donations.
- Yeah, you want to keep your prospects
and current stake holders informed, active, and engaged.
All right, that's a wrap.
Comment below, let us know who you donated to recently.
Also be sure to like this video and...
- Subscribe to the channel and ring that bell
so you get these episodes first.
This is The Journey; we'll see you next time.