Creating donation levels for your campaigns
For every donation campaign, your organization should create donation levels for the goals that the campaign is aimed at achieving. An example of a donation level is to donate $2 to give a bar of soap. In most cases, these levels are presented in form of a list of donation amounts and their corresponding descriptions.
Methods of creating donation levels
There are two methods that can be used to create donation levels. These are the Reward Method and the Impact Units’ Method. With the Reward Method, the donor gets some benefit or value for donating a specific amount. For instance, a person can get a letter written by the child they are sponsoring after donating $100. For corporate sponsors, they can get their logo on the campaign site after donating $1000.
The Impact Units’ Method employs a multiplicative approach in creating donation levels. For instance, $25 can get one housing day for a kid. $50 can get a kid two housing days. $75 can get a kid three housing days. This method is mostly used when the impact units of a campaign or project are quantifiable. It’s a powerful method because it allows donors to tangibly see the impact of their donations.
Donation levels increase transparency of your organization’s spending
Donation levels show how your organization will spend donations. Basically, most donation levels are based on compelling stories. Usually, people read the stories to find out why they should donate and how their donations will be used. A person can visit the donation page of your organization with the intention to donate $25. However, after reading a story and realizing that your organization is transparent on how the donations will be spent, they might be compelled to donate $50. Ideally, people tend to give more when they understand how an organization intends to spend their contributions. This is different from when an organization provides a box for donors to type their contributions.
Donation levels can influence donors to donate more
It’s apparent that creating donation levels increases transparency in terms of spending by your organization. Naturally, this increases the amounts that donors tend to give. A person will donate more on realizing that increasing their contribution will do more.
For instance, if I visit your donation campaign page with the intent to contribute $20 but realize that your donation levels tell me that if I donate $40 I will buy school supplies for a needy pupil in my community, I will most likely increase my $20 to $40. That’s because it very unlikely for me to turn down a child that needs the supplies. That’s the power of donation levels.
Donation levels improve the overall performance of a donation campaign
Basically, suggesting the amount that a person can donate or setting donation levels improves the performance of a donation campaign. That’s because it increases the average size of an online donation or contribution while reducing the bounce-back rate. Naturally, people like systems that make things easier for them. Cloud fundraising software that for instance allows donors to simply click on the amount they want to contribute makes things easier for them. It’s different from a platform that requires them to type the amount to donate and wait for the system to load the next page. Most people leave a page that takes longer to load after typing in their donation amount.
The concept of creating donation levels is generally very simple because it is based on a system that suggests donation amounts. Ideally, the system compels donors to give amounts larger than what they would donate if allowed to type in the amount to donate without assistance. It also responds quickly once a donor selects their donation level.
Generally, creating donation levels has numerous benefits to a nonprofit organization. Nevertheless, you must have a system that makes selecting donation levels easier for donors.