The Smart Move to Make
Posted: July 7, 2025
In 2025, nonprofits face an evolving digital landscape. AI is everywhere for example and increasingly useful. (See Better Giving’s guide on how nonprofits could use AI to help launch a peer to peer fundraiser campaign)
But at the same time, nonprofits face challenging financial circumstances.
So, they have a decision to make that could dramatically impact the success of their fundraising in the future:
“Do we stick with our current nonprofit donation form or move to a different solution?”
You may not think you need to switch donation platforms or processing. Things are OK, the current system works. Why disturb the status quo?
As we wrote a while ago, the Sigmoid Curve is a great illustration showing how it is exactly at this point that a move SHOULD be considered. Before events mean that you HAVE to make a move and before it’s too late to make a difference!
Unfortunately though, for many nonprofits in these difficult times, this decision about the best donation platform to move to has already become urgent.
The smart move to make is to move now, and move quickly!
The Cost of Standing Still
Just think about platform fees and subscription costs for a minute.
If traditional online donation solutions charge between 2-5% each transaction, a nonprofit raising $100,000 annually could lose $2,000-$5,000 and that could have gone directly to their mission.
But the real cost of not switching donation platform is much more than just these platform fees and subscriptions, it’s the opportunity cost of the donations you’re not receiving at all!
Many nonprofits use the outdated systems that were great a few years ago, but that only accept a couple of payment methods. They work. But then so did a coach and horses as a means of transport!
This means they turn away potential donors who prefer alternative giving options. And often these can be younger donors who are the nonprofit’s lifeline for the future.
Take Gen Z for example. They are very comfortable with subscription based services and this is seen in statistics showing monthly giving rising 11% and now one-third of online giving. The gifts tend to be smaller in value than one-off gifts, but the lifetime value if they are kept for 2-3 years, is much larger.
Better Giving Tip for donation success 1
- Some nonprofits know their donation form is not good enough, but then just add more donation options scattered across various webpages and using different titles. It’s difficult for donors to search for and find their preferred route, and then when they do, it is often “email us your details”!
Use a comprehensive single donation form to make donating an easy task for the donor to do.
The Donor Expectation Gap
Today’s donors, those Gen Z’ers for example, expect seamless, flexible giving experiences like:
- Apple Pay and Google Pay for mobile convenience
- Monthly subscription-style giving programs
- Bank transfers and ACH payments
- Cryptocurrency donations
- Built in DAF donations (did you know 38 BILLION dollars is sitting in DAFS ready to donate?)
- One-click recurring gift setup
They want to donate simply and if your donation process doesn’t match their preferred platform experience, you’re shutting the door on them at the most critical moment.
Better Giving Tip for donation success 2
- The fewer fields a donor needs to complete on a donation form, the more likely they will donate.
- Keep the information requests to a minimum to maximise the donations.
Another example. Churches that accept tithing online increase overall donations by 32%. It’s all about removing barriers to giving.
Plus, if as is reported, 92% of donors opt to cover external processing fees as well when given the choice, they are encouraged to support organizations that offer modern, trustworthy donation experiences.
You just have to enable them do it!
The Smart Move Made Simple
The process of switching donation platforms is pretty easy nowadays. It’s easy to set up new payment processing and ensure a smooth transition without disrupting ongoing campaigns.
Integrations using APIs are far ahead of where they were just a couple of years ago. The support the integrators give is fantastic.
Many nonprofits could complete the switch over a weekend, going live Monday morning with these expanded donation routes and reduced costs.
Better Giving Tip for donation success 3
- Don’t forget to tell people before, during and after the switch! Your network won’t donate using the new routes if they don’t know about them!
The learning curve is small, and the efficiency gains are immediate.
The Bottom Line
So, the smart move isn’t just about saving money on processing fees, although that alone often justifies the switch.
It’s about
- Positioning yourself as a nonprofit in touch with technology and the 21st century,
- Looking to the future with improved donor relationships,
- Introducing operational efficiency that frees up more time and resources for your mission.
Your donors, both your current donors AND potential donors that you may otherwise never see, deserve a giving experience that matches their expectations, and your organization deserves to keep more of every dollar raised.
The technology exists, the support is available, and the benefits are immediate.
The question isn’t whether you should make the move.
It’s whether you can afford not to.
Every week of delay is another week of lost donor engagement and unnecessary fees. You don’t need to overhaul your entire fundraising strategy, just make your donation form smarter.
- The Smart Move is clear
- The time to make it is now
- Better Giving is here to help