Get Your Nonprofit Website Ready for Year-End Giving in 30 Minutes

Year-end is the most important fundraising season for a lot of nonprofits. It’s also one of the busiest.

You’re being pulled in a dozen directions, and finding time to get your website dialed in feels nearly impossible.

But getting your website ready for year-end giving doesn’t need to be a heavy lift. You can make a major impact without complicated changes that take forever.

Discover quick hits to help you dial in your website before the rush — without major overhauls or long checklists — so you can enter the giving season with confidence.

If I had 30 minutes today to get my website ready for giving season, this is exactly what I’d do.

Video Transcript

This webinar was originally part of our Nonprofit Website Office Hours series. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

We’re here in the stretch to year-end giving. The final push is here. For most nonprofits, that means we’re entering the most important fundraising season of the year.

For a lot of folks we’re talking to these days, that to-do list feels a mile long. If you’re in that same boat, you are not alone. Between Giving Tuesday coming up in a few weeks and the year-end push, this critical time of year can feel overwhelming.

And that creates a real challenge for a lot of nonprofits. They know how important their website is to year-end success. But finding time for something like buttoning up your website can feel impossible when you’re already stretched so thin.

But leveling up your site in impactful ways doesn’t have to take a ton of time.

Our goal is to give you a short, powerful punch list that you can knock out in 30 minutes this afternoon. So you can put your mind at ease and rest assured your website is in good shape to help connect with potential donors once they start hitting it in the coming weeks.

Find Your Top Landing Pages

Take a minute to track down a handful of your site’s most popular landing pages. And when we say “landing page” here, we’re talking about the page that a visitor lands on when they first visit your website. It’s where their journey begins on your site.

And we’re just looking to start with those top five pages. If you end up with more time, great! You can go beyond that. But let’s start with five. 

In terms of why we recommend this, why this matters — your top landing pages are going to have an outsized impact on the overall performance of your website. 

They’re going to be the most popular entry points for your website visitors. And we’re strapped for time here. That’s the whole point of trying to narrow this into 30 minutes. 

Unless your site is very small, you’re likely not going to have time to do a comprehensive audit of every single page. Focusing on pages your visitors are typically landing on can help you prioritize where to spend your time and ultimately get the most return on the time you invest in leveling up key pages around your site. 

In terms of finding these pages, we’re using Google Analytics 4 here. It’s actually not too difficult to do in GA4. A lot of things are really difficult in GA4, but this is thankfully not one of them. 

Once you’re logged into a Google Analytics 4, you’re going to want to go to Reports > Engagement and under engagement, you’ll find a Landing Page report.

Just make sure you’re setting the date range there in the upper right corner to be something like the last six months, last 12 months, whatever makes sense for your website. That’ll give us a good sample to start with. And then this is going to show you the most popular landing pages on your site.

We won’t get into this in too much detail right now. We have a video that walks through how to find your top landing pages in Google Analytics 4 from start to finish.

It’s only two minutes long, so it’ll get you through it pretty quickly. But again, thankfully this is not one of those reports that’s too difficult to engage with. 

If you don’t have Google Analytics or reliable website data to lean on here, this step will look a bit different. What I typically recommend is picking the five pages you expect to be the most popular based on the campaigns you have planned for the end of the year and how you’re going to be driving traffic to the website.

For example, if your year-end push is centered on a specific initiative or campaign, you might be sending out emails, talking about that on social media, linking to a specific campaign page — we probably expect that campaign page to be pretty popular. 

Or if your year-end push includes more than just donating, if folks are talking about recruiting volunteers for a holiday event or something, then you might expect your Volunteer page or your Event page to be popular destinations for your visitors to land on. 

Just think about the campaigns that you have in the hopper, and pick the ones that make the most sense given your situation.

Review the Content of Those Pages

Once you’ve identified those pages, it’s time to actually review the content on those popular pages. 

With this step, we’re really just looking to take a quick, high-level review of the content. We’re not tackling a comprehensive nonprofit website audit at this point.

There are a few framing questions that I find helpful when it comes to reviewing content. You don’t need to spend a ton of time writing answers to these questions. I’ve just found they’re helpful to consider from the beginning because it helps bring clarity to my review process. 

Honestly, in a lot of ways, it can actually speed up the review process because I’m in the right headspace. I’ve already put myself in the right place to be able to meaningfully and quickly review these key pages.

Framing Questions

So the questions I recommend before diving into before a review: First, who’s the primary audience for this page? Who is this page for? 

This is something worth thinking about with any page of your site, but for now, we’re looking at these most popular landing pages. We want to be really clear on who we’re talking to with these pages. 

With that in mind, next we’re going to say, what is that audience looking for? What question are they looking to answer on this page in particular? 

Asking this question can help you meet visitors where they’re at when they arrive on your page and make sure you’re doing everything you can to quickly provide them with value. 

And then you’ll want to think through, how can my organization help in ways that others can’t? 

If you’ve been to Office Hours before, you’ve probably heard us talk about this concept of differentiated value. It’s just a way of saying, what makes you unique? What sets you apart from all of the others out there working in your space? 

That’s a signal to visitors how you’re different. And if that differentiated value resonates with them, it’s a whole lot more likely they’ll choose to get involved and support your organization since you’re offering this unique opportunity to solve a problem that they deeply care about. 

And that’s helpful all throughout the year, but it’s especially useful when you think of it in the context of end-of-year giving. When they’re being bombarded with tons of appeals and asks, it can help you stand out from the noise.

Then the last question you’ll want to consider here is, what’s the next step in their journey? What action makes the most sense for them after engaging with this page in particular?

Those are the four framing questions. Once you have those in mind, you’re going to want to look for a few things as you review each individual page.

Compelling Hook

Things like, first of all, a compelling hook. What are the first few lines you’re sharing with visitors? What do they see when they first land on your page? Is the text compelling enough to get them hooked? To make them want to read more? 

That’s really the whole point of the hook. That beginning of the page is just to pique their interest enough to get them to dedicate a little time to reading more of the page.

Is it written with the audience you’re targeting in mind? That’s the value of identifying your primary audience is that we can answer this kind of question.

Is it written for the audience? Is it using language that they would use? Does it align with what they’re expecting to find on the page? We really want to make sure that beginning is dialed in because that’s gonna carry outsized importance.

Clear Headings

Next, does your page contain clear, concise headings that help visitors understand what they can expect to find on the page? Really, we want to avoid situations where visitors are greeted with giant walls of text.

Headings not only can break up the page in helpful ways, but they can also give your visitors an idea of what to expect and whether it’s something they want to stick around and read a little bit more about. 

I actually recommend when reviewing a page, scanning only the headings. Read all of the headings, but don’t read the supporting paragraph text.

See if the headings give you a clear, general idea of what the page covers and if they’re compelling enough to make a visitor want to invest time actually reading the page in more detail.

That’s actually not far off from how a lot of people engage with website pages. Think of your own browsing behavior.

A lot of times when I land on a webpage, I’ll scan through the headings to make sure I’m in the right place, and then I’ll actually read the parts of the page that are most pertinent to the challenge that I’m looking to solve. 

What Makes you Unique

Next, make sure your page includes something that helps folks understand what makes you unique. This gets back to that differentiated value we talked about before. How are you different from other organizations that they could potentially support? 

Potential donors and supporters are going to be inundated with appeals this time of year, and you want your organization to stand out. So whatever it is that you do that other organizations don’t or can’t or won’t is likely worth highlighting here in some form.

Primary Call to Action

And next up, check to see if your page has a strong primary call to action. You’ll hear this called a CTA sometimes, call to action. It invites folks to take the next step that’s going to be meaningful to them. 

Is that call to action clearly visible? Is it easy to find? Are there many calls to action that are competing for attention, or do you have a clear, logical next step? 

Ultimately, the goal here is to make sure that folks know what step comes next in their journey and that they’re able to easily take the step that makes the most sense given the context we identified before, like why they’re coming to this page, what they’re looking to do, how we can help in ways that other organizations can.

Anything That Can Be Cut

And then lastly — this is a really helpful point for this time of year, especially, but really anytime — stay on the lookout for anything non-essential that can be cut or removed from your page. 

We want to get to the point as quickly as possible, and including lots of information can make that harder for visitors. Look for anything that can be removed from the page or anything that could be consolidated or phrased more simply. 

It’s all going to go a long way in leveling up these key pages and getting them ready to pull their weight this time of year.

Test the Giving Process (Twice)

Now that your top pages are in good shape, it’s time to actually test the online giving process. You’re going to want to test your process twice: once on a computer and then again on your phone. 

When we say “test the giving process,” we’re not just talking about quickly pulling up the donate page, glancing over the form, clicking the buttons. 

We want you to go all the way through completing your donation both times, on your computer and on your phone. This is the best and, honestly, only way to make sure that your donation process works the way that it should. 

The last thing you want is to drive a bunch of traffic to your donation form, only to find out later that there’s something functionally wrong with the online giving process.

As you test, there are a few things we recommend looking out for.

Form Appearance on Desktop and Mobile

First, does your donation form visually look the way that it should on both desktop and mobile devices? Is it responsive? Which is to say, does it change sizes and layouts to adapt to a smaller screen when you look at it on your phone? 

Pay extra attention to how the whole experience plays out for folks on smaller screens like a cell phone. Because for a lot of organizations, end-of-year giving and engaging with donors can happen on cell phones, sometimes even disproportionately compared to the rest of the year.

Because people are finding folks on social media. They’re reading more over email. A lot of times, appeals lend themselves to more mobile traffic. So make sure you’re testing it pretty thoroughly on that smaller screen to make sure someone will still have the best experience possible.

Clarity of Form Fields

Next, is it clear what fields of your donation form visitors need to fill out in order to submit the form and complete their gift?

Can visitors easily tell what information you need from them in order to donate? Are things like the field labels clear? Can you simplify the language at all? Is it easy to tell which fields are required?

We want to avoid frustration as much as we possibly can. It’s hard enough to get potential donors to the point of wanting to give in the first place. The last thing we want is to lose someone who wanted to give because there was too much friction in the giving process.

Successful Payment Processing

Then finally, does your test donation actually go through as expected? From a functional perspective, was your payment successfully processed? 

And this is really why we push folks to go through the whole giving process, through actually submitting a test donation. Because that’s what allows you to make sure everything is ready for primetime.

And if the answer to all of those questions is yes, fantastic! You are in good shape. But if not, now’s the time to troubleshoot. Not after you’re getting a bunch of emails from potential donors having trouble. 

Who even knows if they’d reach out? A lot of people probably wouldn’t even reach out. They would just not complete the donation process. And so we want to make sure that we’ve dialed that in functionally.

Observe the Post-Donation Experience

Once the donation process is actually ready to go, pay special attention to the post-donation experience. Donating is so much more than just a transaction. And I know everyone talks about that. Everyone knows that logically. 

But the post-donation experience, what happens right after somebody completes a donation, is a special moment. It’s a really meaningful chance to give someone that feeling of being appreciated and reaffirming their decision to donate in the first place.

So beyond making sure your form is functional, you also want to observe that post-donation experience and, to the extent you can, try to feel what it’s like for your donors once they’ve made a gift. 

What happens after you submit that form and you complete your donation? How do you feel as a new donor when you hit the Thank You page or you receive the email thanking you for your donation?

And a few more specific lenses to view this through:

Joining Your Movement

First, does your post-donation message thank your donor for joining your cause? For becoming part of your movement? 

We recommend avoiding messages that feel purely functional here, that just acknowledge a transaction has taken place. Those are all right. They have a purpose. But it leaves a lot of opportunity to deepen the relationship on the table. 

You want people to know their donation was processed. You want to give them the information they need. But you also want them to feel like they’ve become part of something big, like they’ve joined this movement you’re creating. 

That’s also part of why getting clear on your differentiated value can help so much. Because you can reinforce the ways that you’re different, the ways that you’re standing out in this post-donation experience.

Illustrating Impact

Next, does the message effectively illustrate the impact of their gift? Do donors walk away with a clear idea of how their donation will be used to make a difference?

Thank you messages are a great chance for us to connect the dots for our donors and reinforce the impact of a donation. And it helps donors understand the difference their gift is enabling you all to make in the world. It’s just a nice moment to celebrate the movement they’ve joined.

Authentic Messaging

Overall, does your message sound authentic? Does it feel genuine? Like it came from a real person at your organization? 

You don’t need to go over the top with this. But it should sound real. It should sound like it came from you. Not something that’s generic, like any organization could have said it, or so obviously AI-generated that it feels impersonal.

The lens I view this through is, I try to imagine that I’m thanking a close friend for making a gift.

If you imagine you’re thanking a close friend for making a gift to your cause, consider weaving some of that language into your thank you message. Because there’s a good chance that’ll help you make it feel authentic, and that authenticity will resonate with donors.

Clear Next Steps

And lastly, does it offer a clear way for folks to stay involved with your organization? Does it invite folks who want to plug into additional work, does it give them an opportunity to do so beyond just this single gift they’ve just made? 

Someone who has made a donation on your website clearly has interest in your work. They had enough to ultimately make a gift. And they also trust your ability to make a difference. They are bought in the moment they’re making a donation. 

You don’t want to leave them hanging. Consider if there are any other next steps or ways to get further involved that may resonate with them, and then invite them to take those next steps if they’re interested.

Again, if the answer to all of those things is yes, awesome! You are in good shape with your post-donation experience. 

But if that post-donation experience maybe feels a little cold or incomplete or unclear, now is a good time to dial it in and get it ready for this big year-end push.

There you have it! That’s the punch list. Those are the things that we’re going to dial in for this year-end website prep. 

With 30 minutes, you can find your top landing pages and review the content of those handful of pages with those framing questions we outlined before. Test your giving process. Again, we’re going to do it two times (on a computer and on a mobile device). 

And finally, observe what that post-donation experience feels like for donors. Find ways to make it feel authentic and genuine, and present them with a logical next step if they want to get involved.

Keeping it simple and following these steps should put you in a good spot to start driving supporters to your nonprofit website and kick off the giving season with confidence and some peace of mind. 

Even if you’re strapped for time and being pulled in a dozen different directions, hopefully this helps you cut through the noise and quickly get your website ready for that final fundraising push.