Behavioral Design Lab: Fixing your donate page abandon rate

March 31, 2021      Kevin Schulman, Founder, DonorVoice and DVCanvass

Most people – 8 out of 10 – who make it to your donation page don’t donate.  You’re losing 80% of your potential donations.   Why?

Do we really think people stopped caring between the decision and the action?

They lost their motivation, that much is clear.  But where did it go?  The fuel of motivation is threefold and your donation experience is likely falling short on all three.

  • Autonomy and control.  If the donor feels pressured or guilted, they’ll exit to avoid the feeling.  If the form asks for too much information, it undermines their sense of control.
  • Competence.  Does your form make them feel frustrated?  Are they unsure the site is secure?  Are they unsure if their small donation will matter?  Any of those feelings lowers competence and sends them running for the exit.
  • Relatedness.  Does the donor feel connected to your organization, the beneficiary or other donors?  If not, they’ll exit.

The Solution

The Behavioral Design Lab is officially open for applications.  You’ll work directly with the DonorVoice Behavioral Science team.

  • They’ll provide:
    • A detailed but easy to follow review of your donation experience (including the thank you confirmation page),
    • Detailed suggested changes
    • A Testing Plan and will run the test analysis
    • And if you need us to do the design changes our team can do that too.

So much of your lost income could be saved with behavioral design, the science of improving the user experience.  Getting people to act can be tough. Behavioral design helps change people’s behavior by changing their environment (physical or digital).

It’s rooted in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics and backed by explanations of why people do what they do.   Our model to optimize user experience is adapted from the Fogg model of behavior change.

We’ll diagnose your donation page and determine what combination of changes you need:

1) Motivation Boost.  Experience is easy but still losing donors.  This is a copy problem.

2) Barrier Buster.  Motivation is high, but the experience is too difficult.  Your form design and flow need work.

3) Nudge.  Even if motivation is high and the process easy, people benefit from reinforcing their glide path.

Please fill out the application.  It’s short but the choice is yours – recoup lost donors or not…  We’ll contact you about your status and keep you informed.

Successful applicants will make a nominal investment of just $2500.  This is a charity-only lab and your donation page must be generating one million or more in annual revenue for consideration.

If you have questions you can submit those on the application.

Kevin