{"id":21844,"date":"2020-04-15T03:17:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T03:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/virtuous.org\/raise\/2020\/04\/15\/removing-friction-from-nonprofit-donation-pages-part-1\/"},"modified":"2020-04-15T03:17:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T03:17:46","slug":"removing-friction-from-nonprofit-donation-pages-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/virtuous.org\/raise\/removing-friction-from-nonprofit-donation-pages-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Removing Friction from Nonprofit Donation Pages: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Friction is anything that causes psychological resistance to a given element in the donation process. The more friction you have on your donation pages, the less likely it will be that your donor will choose to give.<\/p>\n

Therefore, our work is simple. Remove the friction in the giving process.<\/p>\n

But that isn\u2019t nearly as easy as it sounds.<\/p>\n

Why? Because when you\u2019re not the donor it\u2019s hard to see the friction in your process.<\/p>\n

You understand all the elements \u2013 and where they\u2019re leading the donor.<\/p>\n

Since you\u2019re the one who created the donation page and all its elements, you know the end goal.<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve got complete confidence in yourself and your organization to do the right thing with the donation after the donor has given it to you.<\/p>\n

But what about your donor?<\/b><\/h3>\n

They don\u2019t know any of that.<\/p>\n

All they have is what you\u2019ve presented to them on your donation page.<\/p>\n

No insider information. Just the copy and design in front of them.<\/p>\n

So when your donation page has friction on it, it\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n

I want to begin a series of blog posts diving deep into various kinds of friction your donors and potential donors encounter when they visit donation pages.<\/p>\n

These are points of friction we found while researching our benchmark study The State of Nonprofit Donation Pages<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Some of these points of friction might seem trivial.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s because you have all the inside information. What\u2019s more important is\u2026<\/p>\n

Is it trivial to your donor?<\/i><\/p>\n

Come to find out, these points of friction can mean everything when it comes to a donor saying yes\u2026 or no.<\/p>\n

Field Number Friction<\/h3>\n

The number one cause for friction in donation pages is field number friction.<\/p>\n

This kind of friction is when you require extra information from the donor that\u2019s not entirely necessary to the donation process.<\/p>\n

The more fields you require, or the more friction you put in front of a donor, the less likely they are to complete the task.<\/p>\n

More importantly, if they don\u2019t finish the task of giving through your donation page, they won\u2019t become your donor.<\/p>\n

As you know, raising donors<\/a> is ultimately much more profitable for your nonprofit than simply raising donations.<\/p>\n

Donations are one-time transactions. Donors represent fertile relationships where multiple donations are given over a lifetime.\u00a0<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what does field number friction look like?<\/p>\n

Benchmark Study Experiment<\/h3>\n

In this experiment in our benchmark study<\/a>, the only difference between these two forms is that the cell phone field is required in the treatment page.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Adding a field requiring the donor\u2019s cell number caused a 50% decrease in donations.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

We lost the chance to raise half of the donors in this experiment!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the big lesson from this experiment?<\/p>\n

Field number friction is a big<\/i> deal.<\/p>\n

Now, when we made the cell phone field optional, there was no difference in the conversion rate.<\/p>\n

But adding required fields that aren\u2019t necessary for the gift is the worst kind of friction for potential donors.<\/p>\n

The Usual Suspects<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Do you have unnecessary required fields on your donation pages?<\/p>\n

Chances are, you do.<\/p>\n

In our research, we found that 40% of organizations required non-essential information to complete a donation.<\/b><\/p>\n

This means they required information other than what was really needed to process the gift. This could be a phone number, a title, CAPTCHA, or a question about how you found out about them.<\/p>\n

The most required non-essential information was a phone number (25%).\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n

If you\u2019re going to require a phone number, you have to make sure you make up the value somewhere else in the process in terms of upgrades or thank you\u2019s.<\/p>\n

This creates a lot of friction and anxiety in the process because people don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to do with their personal phone number.<\/p>\n

Some organizations required a title (8%).<\/b><\/h4>\n

But do you really need to know if they\u2019re a Mr. or Mrs.?<\/p>\n

Do you really want to identify them that way? Do they want to be identified that way?<\/p>\n

A number of organizations required CAPTCHA (8%).<\/b><\/h4>\n

This is a security measure where you have to play the \u201care you a robot?\u201d game and choose which pictures are street signs to pass the test.<\/p>\n

At first, you\u2019d think that CAPTCHA forms are a smart way to increase security on a giving form.<\/p>\n

However, you really don\u2019t need those security methods anymore.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

They no longer have a place and they add a lot of extra friction.<\/p>\n

Some organizations required the gift\u2019s motivation (4%).<\/b><\/h4>\n

Several nonprofits required donors to answer questions like\u2026<\/p>\n