Can you name the nine types of donations nonprofits can receive? If not, you've come to the right place! Knowing more about the types of donations your nonprofit may get will make you prepared to receive them – and more likely to get them! Read on to learn what each type entails and how to collect them.
You probably know how important donations are for helping your nonprofit or charity fulfill its mission. But you might not be aware of the many different types of donations you might receive.
There’s a whole world of fundraising opportunities that you can unlock!
In this article, we’ll walk you through different types of donations and how Donorbox can help you boost your donations so you reach each and every goal this year.
Let’s first look at all the donations your organization might receive.
The most common type of donation nonprofits and charities receive is the one-time donation. This is any amount of money given to an organization one time.
These donations can come online, by phone, by mail, or in person.
Donorbox helps you create online donation forms and pages in order to accept donations as per your choice of interval. You can easily add the one-time donation interval while customizing your Donorbox donation form. Look at this example here – this Donorbox-hosted fundraising page includes a one-time donation form.
Accept Online Donations With Donorbox!
If you receive mailed or in-person one-time donations, Donorbox also allows you to enter this donation (and donor) data into its database to keep track of all donations in one place.
Recurring donations are automated, repeated donations from one donor. This means you have donors that give daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, or whichever donation interval works best for them.
It’s essential to offer recurring donations as an option on your donation form. Recurring donors will give 42% more per year than donors who give one-time donations.
With Donorbox, you can create recurring donation forms in the same way that you do one-time ones. All you have to do is simply select the intervals (daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, annually) while customizing the donation form. You can select up to 4 intervals of your choice and also highlight the one that is most preferred.
Check out this example from Veterans For Child Rescue which has embedded this Donorbox recurring donation form on their website.
Planned giving is also called legacy giving which refers to major gifts that you can receive from donors. Donors usually plan for these gifts as part of their overall financial or estate planning.
These donations include –
These gifts bring a substantial amount of value to your organization. Donors also like the option of including your nonprofit or charity in their planned giving. It is an important part of their legacy and their connection to your mission.
Look at this example of an online campaign on Donorbox with a donation designation where donors have the option to get in touch with the organization for planned giving.
People often make donations in honor or memory of a loved one. They may also want to honor special days like birthdays. If you give them an option on your donation form to make this happen, that donation is referred to as a tribute or memorial donation.
You can even create dedicated campaigns to encourage donors to make tribute gifts on a special day such as father’s day or mother’s day. Look at how the organization YoungMoms implemented this idea with the below Donorbox fundraising page.
Get Tribute Donations Online With Donorbox!
Instead of giving cash, some donors might choose to give securities such as stocks, mutual funds, and bonds.
When someone donates stock, they are saving themselves the trouble of liquidating the stock and donating the cash. Also, they are avoiding having to pay capital gains taxes on the overall amount.
This increases the total amount donated – meaning more for your charity!
The Donorbox + Giving Block integration makes it easy to collect stock donations. Learn more in this blog.
In-kind donations include anything donated to your nonprofit other than cash or property. These gifts help nonprofits cut back on their operating budgets, which is a huge win in the long run!
In-kind gifts will look different for different organizations, but here are some examples:
In-kind gifts are just as important as cash gifts when it comes to helping your charity reach its mission.
Matching donations can happen in many ways. A major donor may want to match a particular amount you raise through a campaign. Or a sponsor may offer to match donations until a certain period of time.
Alternatively, some companies that have social responsibility programs offer to match donations their employees make to nonprofits. This is a huge perk for the employee who wants to make an even bigger impact at your charity.
And for your nonprofit, it’s the best opportunity to double or triple your supporters’ donations.
Donorbox partners with Double the Donation to let you give this option to your donors. You can easily enable the donation matching feature while customizing your form. You will also get a matching widget to embed in your website. Your donors will search for their employers and make the donation. Donorbox sends them the details to complete the matching process.
Look at this example from our nonprofit user, WeAreSR!
These donations come from workplaces where companies encourage employees to make donations to member charities through recurring payroll deductions. These are tax-deductible donations and hence, are desired by most people.
Nonprofits and charities need to apply and adhere to the company guidelines to be able to receive these donations. A lot of companies even utilize tools like peer-to-peer fundraising to add a competitive streak to this giving program.
It is advisable to research such companies and apply in order to be eligible for these donations. This can be a significant and hassle-free funding source for your charity.
When you host a fundraising event, you will make money selling tickets to the event. But you can also get a significant amount of donations during events.
That can happen in a number of ways: you can accept donations right from your online event page; you can also offer multiple ways to make donations at the venue. These ways include donation kiosks, text-to-give, QR codes linking to your donation page, etc.
Donorbox Events lets you easily create beautiful online event pages with event ticketing forms to sell tickets online. Along with that, you can also accept donations right from the form. Refer to this live example of an event page for a better understanding.
Create a Nonprofit Event on Donorbox
With Donorbox, you can also accept donations through text-to-give at your event. In addition, we’ve also released a new app – Donorbox Live™ Kiosk – that helps you quickly accept cashless donations at fundraising events via an iPad or Android tablet paired with a card reader device.
Donorbox is an all-in-one fundraising solution for nonprofits, charities, faith-based organizations, universities and schools, art and political organizations, and more. We have helped 80,000+ organizations in 96 countries raise over $2 billion in donations.
You can sign up for free and get started in just 15 minutes!
Our simple and donor-friendly features are designed to boost donations to your organization. Let’s take a quick look at what you can achieve with Donorbox –
All set to get started? Read this step-by-step guide or watch this video for a quick tutorial.
A healthy nonprofit or charity has a variety of donations they regularly receive. This variety ensures they can continue to make a real change in the world.
That’s where having the right tool to handle your donation process is so important. Donorbox is there to help you cover most of these donation types with its powerful range of features. Learn more on our website.
Sign up to start fundraising right away – no contracts and no monthly fees!
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Lindsey spent years wearing many hats in the nonprofit world. Whether she was helping arts nonprofits with their messaging and content, planning a fundraising gala, writing an NEA grant proposal, or running a membership program with over 400 members, she learned how to navigate – and appreciate! – the fast-paced world of fundraising. Now, she loves sharing those hard-earned lessons with the Donorbox community.
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Lindsey Baker Bower