Individual Donors: How A Digital Donor Wall Can Increase Giving

The majority of those who give to nonprofits fall under the category of individual donors. Statistics show that individual donations account for more than three-quarters of gifts received by nonprofits in the United States per year. 

Individual donors are those who feel compelled to give at a special fundraising event or through something like a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. Individuals enrolled in your monthly giving program or are one-time givers also fall under the individual donor category. In donor relations, your goal is to build relationships with existing donors. Once you do that, donors will be encouraged to become regular givers and increase their gift size. 

Moving individual donors to action is essential and not difficult to do when using the right tools and methods. When a gift is made, it's vital to share the impact of that donation. One of the easiest ways to do this is through your digital donor wall. Let's explore how you can use your digital donor wall to increase giving. 

Recognize Your Individual Donors 

We know that the support of individual donors is needed to carry out your nonprofit organization's mission successfully. And after you receive a gift from an individual donor, the next step in the stewardship plan is to acknowledge it.

Publicly acknowledging your donors elevates their experience with your nonprofit and makes them feel appreciated. One key use of a digital donor wall is donor recognition. Digital donor walls are the donor recognition tool of the future, overtaking the lackluster traditional walls. Choosing the right digital solution is vital, and OmniAlly offers everything you need. 

With OmniAlly's Digital Donor Engagement System℠, you can easily display the names of your individual donors. If you have different giving tiers, include the names of the donors in each tier or just list donors alphabetically. Of course, you can highlight board members, major donors, and others. 

Whatever type of donors you want to highlight on your wall, you have that flexibility with OmniAlly. 

For example, if you have a corporate sponsor with a matching gift program, display the names of the employees who participate. Or, a corporate partner may offer volunteer grants to encourage their volunteers to give back to the community. Add their names to your wall and acknowledge their efforts.

Telling compelling impact stories is an easy way to grow your donor base. When potential donors see a gift's impact and the work your nonprofit does, they are persuaded to give. Add actual numbers from your annual reports to your wall so viewers can see results.

Impact stories are helpful for several other reasons as well. If you have recently submitted a grant proposal to a corporation and they are visiting you, program your digital donor wall to showcase impact stories at that specific time.

Are you looking to share your nonprofit's impact with your online audience and on social media? Invest in a virtual donor wall as an individual product or as an addition to increase your outreach. A virtual wall may also recognize donors on your website and social media channels.

When a nonprofit receives donations, they should be upfront with how they put those donations to use. Using your digital donor wall to share powerful impact stories is an easy way to showcase your work and increase individual gifts. 

Provide Campaign Updates 

If your nonprofit has recently completed a capital campaign, use your digital donor wall to share the campaign outcomes. Illustrate how much money was raised and how the funds will be spent, and add a story using rich graphics to inform donors why receiving funds is needed to make a change. 

Highlight the peer-to-peer campaigns that donors embark upon with visuals and videos. For example, if one campaign consisted of a bake sale, show images of participants and the winner. Remember to tell your audience how much was raised and the reason for the campaign.

Using your digital donor wall to showcase impact is an effective way to enhance an individual donor fundraising plan. This way, you show respect for your donors, increasing their likelihood of them becoming regular donors and increasing their gift size. 

By using impact stories to illustrate how individual donors make a difference in a campaign, you convey immense respect and appreciation. Ultimately, this will lead to an increase in repeat donors and gift size over time. 

Interactive Walls: Elevating the Experience 

OmniAlly allows you to build a more profound user experience with an interactive donor wall. The touch screen feature will let viewers interact with the impact story and learn more about individual donors. They can scroll to view images of projects, watch impact videos or testimonials, and select a donor profile. 

Imagine a capital campaign donor seeing this innovative display that vividly shows them how their gift was put to use. Include a year-end impact infographic that viewers can touch on to discover your total amount raised and the impact on the cause. This dramatically impacts a donor's confidence and motivates them to share your work with their network.

To make giving easy for donors, add a QR code to your wall that leads straight to a donation page. A QR code could also be included to take a viewer to your website or even an external website, such as a corporate partner's.

Provide the same interactive features for peer-to-peer campaigns. The donors contributing to those campaigns appreciate having an up-close and personal look at how much was raised and what it did. This may even inspire others to launch their own campaigns. There is no end to what you can do with an interactive wall.

Summary 

Since individual donors are vital to the financial health of your nonprofit, investing in a strong relationship with them should be a top priority. Properly acknowledging first-time or major donors who give to your nonprofit is necessary. 

OmniAlly's easy-to-use digital wall solution is ideal for recognizing individual donors and helping your donor relations team find new donors. When potential donor notices how you acknowledge your donors and the impact stories you display, they, too, will be compelled to give. Strengthening your association with donors through recognition and sharing impact will lead to an increase in giving for your nonprofit. 

Interested in learning more about digital donor walls? Contact OmniAlly to schedule your demo today.