5 tips for using urgent appeals on your nonprofit website

Guest post by Anne Stefanyk, Founder and CEO of Kanopi Studios

Getting website visitors to support your nonprofit financially is no easy task. The gap between encouraging visitors to check out your website and actually inspiring them to make a gift can be challenging to overcome.

Urgent appeals can effectively capture potential donors’ attention, prompting them to donate immediately instead of delaying their decision. For example, it’s much more compelling to say, “Donate now to provide urgent aid to communities affected by this week’s wildfires,” rather than simply stating, “Donate now to support communities in need.”

Let’s explore five expert tips that the top nonprofit websites use to request urgent donations from their online audiences.

1. Clarify your ask

Successful online fundraising starts with setting clear goals for your campaign. Clarify what you’re asking supporters to do by taking the following steps:

• Identify your nonprofit’s highest fundraising priorities. What specifically do you need funding for right now? Top priorities could include repairing a community member’s home damaged in a recent tornado or raising enough money to purchase the building your nonprofit operates from before a hard deadline.
• Be specific in your requests. What do you want your audience to do after reading your appeal? For example, should supporters make a $10 donation right now, join your monthly giving program, or share your appeal with five friends online? Whatever it is, your call to action (CTA) should be as specific as possible.
• Don’t overuse urgent requests. If everything is urgent, nothing is! In other words, your audience won’t take your urgent appeals seriously if every appeal you send them is presented as a life-or-death situation. Use urgent appeals sparingly and reserve them for situations where funding is truly pressing.

When you’re specific and clear about your requests, supporters can easily see why your requests are so urgent. This precision makes your appeals more real to your audience by giving them a glimpse into your organization’s daily work and current highest priorities.

2. Provide a timeline

Add urgency to your appeals by making them time-sensitive. Here are a few examples of critical appeals that incorporate timing:

• There are only 24 hours left to get your donation matched by a generous anonymous donor!
• Register for our upcoming Hot Chocolate 5K before January 30th to get your free T-shirt.
• We’re 48 hours away from our Thanksgiving meal fundraiser coming to a close, and we still need $3,000 to reach our goal. Give $20 now to push us toward the finish line!

Time-based appeals work not only to increase urgency but also inspire a sense of FOMO (the fear of missing out). Supporters will understand that they only have a specific amount of time to act before missing a vital opportunity to show their support or access a specific benefit.

3. Use emotional and compelling testimonials

When supporters meet the people impacted by your efforts, they’ll feel more compelled to support your mission immediately. Introduce your audience to your organization’s constituents by featuring compelling, personal testimonials on your website. These testimonials should include:

• The constituent’s connection to your cause. For example, perhaps the individual first came into contact with your healthcare nonprofit when they were diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago. What were their first impressions of your mission? How did they feel upon first meeting with your organization’s staff?
• A photo or video of the individual. Including a visual helps form an emotional connection with your audience. Ensure the photo is professional and a clear solo shot of the highlighted person.
• Direct quotes from the person being interviewed. Let each constituent tell their story in their own words, whether through a video interview or a written story with direct quotes.

Create a testimonials page on your website to host these constituent spotlights. You can also include a testimonial on your online donation form to capture supporters’ attention and make a final case for why they should give.

In addition to constituent testimonials, you can also include donor testimonials to give potential supporters a look at what it’s like to support your nonprofit financially. Explore your organization’s donor management software to find long-term, loyal donors interested in contributing a testimonial.

Current donors can provide insight into their experience, connection to your mission, and the benefits they experience from being a donor, whether tangible gifts (like free merchandise) or intangible advantages (like a sense of fulfillment).

4. Optimize your calls to action

As mentioned above, specific and attention-grabbing CTAs are your secret weapon when conveying urgency to your audience. The CTAs you use across your website to drive fundraising engagement may include buttons or links that drive supporters to your online donation form.

To make these buttons as compelling as possible, they should be:

• Specific: Explain specifically what you want supporters to do, such as “Give $15 now to help us fight deforestation in our local community!” or “Register to secure your spot in our community workshop series.”
• Actionable: Supporters should be able to take immediate action after clicking on the CTA, whether donating, creating a peer-to-peer fundraising page, or registering for a fundraising event.
• Simple: Use just a few words or a short sentence to convey your message. 
• Branded to your organization: Ensure CTA buttons include your organization’s brand elements, such as your colors, logo, and fonts.

Use various tech solutions to test the effectiveness of your CTAs. For example, you may leverage generative AI tools to help develop ideas for compelling CTA language and analytics tools to track the clickthrough rates of every CTA on your website.

If you need support to conduct comprehensive CTA research, consider working with a nonprofit web design agency. These professionals can help you identify the right fundraising technology and strategically update your website strategy based on your findings.

5. Demonstrate immediate impact

Provide follow-up information about how donors’ gifts helped you reach your urgent goal. These explanations make donors feel more inclined to donate the next time you have an urgent request because they’ll see that your organization actually puts these gifts to good use.

Thank donors immediately and send a donation receipt. Your gratitude email should include:

• An impact statement: For example, “Because of your $100 donation, we were able to purchase much-needed supplies for an unexpected litter of puppies dropped off at our shelter.”
• Visuals: If possible, include photos or video of the people or animals supported by donations. Use blur effects to maintain anonymity as needed (if you work with children, for instance).
• An additional CTA: Let supporters know how to stay in touch and receive additional updates on your work, whether by registering for your email newsletter, setting up blog alerts, or following your organization on social media.

Update your nonprofit’s blog with information about your campaign so donors can feel more fulfilled by seeing their plans come to fruition. Tell donors how you couldn’t have done it without their help.

Sprinkle your urgent appeals naturally throughout your nonprofit’s website. Avoid obtrusive elements, like pop-up messages, that could disrupt the user experience. Instead, opt for an eye-catching homepage CTA or banners at the top of your website to catch users’ attention.

With these tips, you can incorporate effective urgent appeals into your nonprofit’s website to support your fundraising efforts and drive your campaigns to success.