Landing pages are the pages on your website that donors, volunteers, and other supporters first see upon entering your site. These pages are those featured in your campaigns, whether for donations, memberships, event tickets, or other needs. Read this blog to learn more about the different types of nonprofit landing pages and how you can make sure those landing on them complete the action you want them to do - also known as converting.
Online giving is becoming more popular each day, which means your online presence needs to be in tip-top shape. Take the time to perfect your email campaigns, social media accounts, digital advertising, and your nonprofit landing page to be sure you are keeping up with the times.
Landing pages are some of the most important pieces of the digital puzzle. When built correctly, they can be very effective at converting viewers into supporters for your nonprofit.
There are several things to consider when building impactful nonprofit landing pages. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about landing pages – including how to make one.
In short, a landing page is the first page a website visitor lands on. There are several types of landing pages, but they are all aiming to encourage visitors to complete a conversion action.
Because landing pages have the main goal of converting viewers, they don’t include several links to other pages. That means they don’t typically feature the main navigation bar, social media buttons, or other links that may distract the visitor from that goal.
A typical landing page will include an attention-getting headline, brief content explaining the goal of the page, and impactful imagery to build upon the content. It will also feature a primary call to action that stands out on the page, such as a brief form or a button.
As long as your webpage follows the above guidelines, just about any page can be a landing page. But, there are several types of landing pages most often used by nonprofits.
Perhaps the most popular nonprofit landing page is a donation page, also known as a fundraising page. The primary goal of this page is to – you guessed it – raise money.
Donation pages should include a strong, emotive headline, as well as content and images that showcase your impact, and a direct call to action to give with either a button to your giving form or the online giving form itself.
Technically, a donation page could be either a landing page or a standard page on your website. Many organizations choose to host a standard giving page that is active at all times and does include the website’s main navigation and links to other pages.
Then, they build temporary landing pages without these distractions for time-bound fundraising campaigns, such as those for Giving Tuesday or crowdfunding. These pages often feature a more specific call to action to support a certain program or initiative.
Pro tip: Create separate landing pages for each fundraising campaign to make it easier to track the success of your outreach efforts. For example, with Donorbox, it’s simple and free to develop an unlimited number of fundraising pages, each with unique URLs and QR codes.
Here’s an example of a donation landing page created on Donorbox.
Create a Donation Landing Page
Another landing page often used by nonprofits is one promoting a membership program.
Membership programs create sustainable growth for your nonprofit. In exchange for monthly or annual fees, you offer members exclusive benefits, such as a newsletter, merchandise, or members-only events, ensuring recurring revenue for your organization and increased donor loyalty.
In addition to the headline, content, call to action, and imagery all landing pages should have, membership program landing pages should include a brief form as well as details about each membership tier and what is included.
Donorbox lets you create membership campaign pages for free. You can add a monthly or yearly membership form to your page and customize the form as well as the page as per your liking. You can also manage your members and their payment information at the backend. This is a simple example of a membership landing page created on Donorbox.
Another great time to use a landing page is when you are promoting an event. This allows you to send your potential ticket buyers directly to a page focused on selling tickets.
An event landing page will typically feature important event information, including the date, location, time, and deadline to buy tickets, as well as a brief description of the event and the mission it supports.
The call to action, of course, is to purchase tickets or reserve a table, which can usually be done via a form built into the page itself.
Donorbox Events makes it easy to sell and manage your tickets online. Features like ticket sales deadlines, ticket quantity limits, and tax-deductible calculations easily automate the process. Our event ticketing forms are also embeddable on your website.
Here’s an example of an event landing page created on Donorbox –
Create an Event Page on Donorbox
Looking for more volunteers? A volunteer sign-up landing page may be a good fit!
Along with the other features of well-designed landing pages, volunteer sign-up pages should include a quick registration form that allows potential volunteers to share their contact information as well as how they would like to help.
If your goal is to build your contact lists, creating a landing page for lead generation or a newsletter sign-up is a good idea.
For a lead generation landing page, you’ll need to offer an exclusive tool, such as an e-book, in exchange for an individual’s name and email address. And, on a newsletter sign-up page, you’ll include a form asking for names, email addresses, and/or physical addresses (depending on if you send your newsletter digitally or in the mail).
Also, be sure to share exactly what readers can expect from your tool or newsletter before they make the decision to sign up.
The nonprofit landing page design can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be!
Here are 5 tips to get you started on creating a landing page that converts.
Above all else, your nonprofit landing pages need to be clear. By that, we mean that it should be obvious to your readers exactly what you want them to do on the page.
To do that, keep each landing page hyper-focused on your goal. Get to the point as quickly as possible by using concise language. Avoid jargon and complex language at all costs. Both your youngest and your oldest supporters should be able to understand it!
Your call to action also needs to be obvious. For example, if you are asking for donations, it should be ‘Give to help now’. If you are selling tickets, tell your audience to ‘Reserve your seat today’.
And – remember – stick to one call to action whenever possible. Research shows that, when presented with more than one option, people are more likely to pick the less expensive one.
So, if you ask someone to donate or join your email list on the same page, they will be more likely to pick signing up for emails.
Beyond using concise, jargon-free language, also make your content easy to read. This means following accessibility guidelines, such as using 18-point font, adding alt text in images for screen readers, using contrasting colors, and more.
We also suggest using bullets and sub-headlines to break up text whenever possible, especially if there is a lot of information that needs to be included on your page. This will help draw your reader through the content and will give skimmers all of the information they need.
Finally, while images are important, make sure to never place text over photos. While it may look pretty, it can be very difficult to read.
Speaking of images…it’s true what they say, images really are worth 1,000 words. Showing instead of telling your audience about your impact and why they should complete an action will make a conversion more likely.
Select powerful and emotive photos and also make use of videos to quickly explain concepts or tell stories in an exciting way.
Icons and graphs can also make it easier to understand and process a lot of information at one time; especially if you are showcasing statistics or listing the benefits of membership tiers or event ticket levels.
Whenever your nonprofit landing page’s call to action involves filling out a form, you should ensure that form is as quick and easy to fill out as possible.
Gather only the information that you need, such as name, email, and payment info for donations, and only name and email for email lists. Your audience is much more likely to complete a conversion if they don’t have to spend a lot of time on your form!
Pro tip: When it comes to accepting donations, provide your users with digital wallet payment options. Apple Pay, Venmo, Google Pay, or PayPal – these options allow them to fill out your form in just a few clicks. For example, Donorbox’s UltraSwift™ Pay feature makes it possible for donors to give with digital wallets without having to type in their information.
Check this donation landing page below – the form lets donors give quickly through PayPal in addition to other options.
Create a Super-Fast Donation Form
No matter how much general research is done or how many tips you read, there is no way to tell exactly what will work for your nonprofit without trying it out.
Because every audience is different, it’s important to test your page over time and make adjustments as needed. Build your landing page, then check your analytics in a month or so to see how it is performing.
If your conversion rate isn’t as high as you had hoped, try adjusting your headline or your call to action and see if that makes a difference.
Looking for more best practices for building effective nonprofit landing pages and websites? Watch this webinar!
These organizations have each done a fantastic job at creating their own nonprofit landing pages – check them out for inspiration!
Maya’s Hope hosts an annual Lotus Ball to raise critical funds for their mission, and sponsorships are a big part of the success of this event each year.
So, they created a dedicated event sponsorship landing page to share with potential sponsors.
We love that this page is hyper-focused on one goal. It has a single call to action and also uses clear, concise language to convey why an individual or organization may want to become a sponsor.
Their “Sponsorship Opportunities” graph (shown above) is also a great visual element that quickly breaks down what is included in each sponsorship level.
Dordt University is hosting a major capital campaign to cover three areas of need: innovative programs, their Christian living-learning community, and increasing access to education.
So, they created this landing page specifically centered around raising funds for this campaign.
As you can see, the page is simple, straightforward, and has an easy-to-understand call to action – ‘Give Now’ – that leads users to a donation form pop-up.
Scrolling down the page, you’ll see other calls to action, but each is still focused on giving. This way, if a donor is interested in giving but not necessarily to the capital campaign, they can find a program they are truly passionate about.
To keep potential donors from getting distracted by other items on their website, Richer Life created a fundraising landing page for their #OneTeam for Kenya campaign. This page keeps the reader focused on this specific program, sharing important details and impact information.
Our favorite part about this page? The quick, simple giving form provides a lot of information in a clear, concise way.
As you can see, each giving level comes with a description of what exactly that level of donation can do for this organization. It enables donors to really feel as if they are making a true difference. Plus, Richer for Life makes it very clear what they want you to do…give!
The fundraising thermometer also creates a sense of transparency and urgency among potential donors. This is an effective conversion-boosting feature for a donation page. This meter shown here is a part of the Donorbox donation form that they’ve embedded in this landing page.
See something you like in the landing page examples above? Each of these nonprofits is a Donorbox organization that uses our innovative suite of fundraising tools to capture those all-important conversions.
You can create several different types of landing pages within the Donorbox platform, each securely hosted by Donorbox and built as responsive pages that will work well on any device. We’ll focus on building a fundraising landing page here, but you can also create event pages and membership pages using Donorbox. You also always have the choice to build a Donorbox form and embed it into a nonprofit landing page built on your own website!
To create a fundraising landing page on Donorbox, follow these simple steps (click here for a detailed guide):
If you haven’t already, start by signing up for Donorbox. It’s completely free to start, and we don’t charge any set-up fees.
Next, log in to your account and head to the Campaigns page on your dashboard.
Note: You’ll also need to make sure your account is connected to a payment processor before you can accept donations via your Donorbox form and fundraising page.
On your Campaigns page, click the orange ‘+New Campaign’ button.
Then, select ‘Fundraising Page’ to create a giving form and build a Donorbox landing page to host it.
Choose a name for your campaign as well as the language you would like to use on your fundraising form and page. You may also choose a campaign goal to display for your audience in a fundraising thermometer, but this is optional. Click ‘Create Fundraising Page’ when you’re ready.
Here is where you make your Donorbox-hosted fundraising page your very own. Scroll down the left-hand sidebar to find all of the options you can use to customize your page. This includes branding – adding your logo, brand color hex code – as well as storytelling through your background image and campaign details. Looking for more customization options? Click the ‘Complete Editor’ button in the ‘Campaign Details’ section.
You may also turn on crowdfunding for this campaign, which enables you to post updates and email them to subscribers as well add buttons to take users to your own social media accounts. Other options include editing the donation meter, enabling the Donor Wall (which provides social proof by allowing donors to post their gifts and comments on your campaign), and disabling social sharing buttons.
Satisfied with your choices? Click ‘Create Campaign’ to officially launch your fundraising landing page! Don’t worry, you can always make adjustments later.
Looking for more in-depth editing options for editing your form and fundraising page? Select ‘Continue editing’ (or the pencil ‘Edit’ icon) and you’ll find several additional ways to customize your campaign.
In Campaign Creator, you can turn on peer-to-peer fundraising, change your general settings, and much more. Just click on the corresponding section under ‘Your Donation Form’ to edit:
Once you have completed your fundraising page, it’s time to share it with the world! Find your shareable page and URL by clicking ‘Preview Campaign Page’ to see the page in action – simply copy and paste the URL where you want to share it.
You can also select ‘QR Code’ to find your campaign’s unique QR code. Download it as is or click ‘Customize’ to make any necessary changes, such as adding a trackable UTM.
Be sure to share your URL or QR code on all of your fundraising materials so that your donors can find your new nonprofit landing page and use it to donate critical funds to your organization.
Effective nonprofit landing page design is important to your organization. Having impactful landing pages can really make a difference in conversion rates. Whether your goal is to get your audience to give, buy tickets, or sign up as a volunteer, a well-structured landing page can help.
And Donorbox can be your guide! It’s free to sign up, and you can access an unlimited number of fundraising, event, and membership landing pages – and more. Learn more about Donorbox and its conversion-boosting features on the website. Sign up for free and get started with creating a landing page that easily converts!
We have a lot of articles and guides on fundraising, donor management, nonprofit management, and more on the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a curated list of the best Donorbox resources in your inbox every month.
Kara has several years of experience in communications and marketing for nonprofit organizations. Her love for serving others began while fundraising for and attending mission trips. She then worked with multiple local nonprofits through various marketing agencies and volunteer opportunities before becoming a communications manager at Variety the Children's Charity of St. Louis for more than four years. Kara now specializes in writing and enjoys sharing her experiences and knowledge with others on this platform.
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Kara Schmid