Using Donor Packages to Drive Donations

Many nonprofits allow donors to choose the amount they want to donate to come off as less pushy and restricting, but setting limits isn’t bad either. Setting specific giving packages on your donation pages can be a good thing if they end up influencing and increasing donations.

What are Donor Packages?

Donor packages allow donors to choose from pre-set amounts to donate. Rather than leaving an empty space for donors to input an amount of their choice, donor packages allow you to set benchmarks to influence the donations.

How to Set Donor Packages

When deciding on donor packages, you should look at the smallest and largest donation amounts you have received as a benchmark. That is, if your largest donation so far has been $200, you want to bump it up a bit and set your highest donation package at maybe $250. Similarly, bump up the amounts of the smallest donation as well as the average donation. Your goal with these packages is to encourage larger donations, but it should be within a realistic range based on what you’ve seen occur before.

Tell Donors the Impact of Their Donations

When setting packages, you want to remain realistic, but you also want to make an impact and have each package serve as real-time needs fulfillment for your organization. When offering packages, highlighting these needs will let donors know what your priorities are and how they can help out by donating. Be specific – include statistics and details. If a $10 donation provides food for a poor person, mention it. If it provides a set of textbooks for a class of 20, mention it. The more detailed you get, the more inspired people will be to select a particular package because they will be able to picture the impact in a concrete way.

Remember the Difference between Who is Giving

When it comes to donors, you can get contributions from individuals, or you can get them from corporations who are carrying out their social responsibilities. Keeping the same donor packages for corporations and individuals is not feasible since their giving capacity is vastly different. It is better to offer corporations a set package that does not allow for customization. Not only will most corporations pick the lower end of the spectrum, but having customization options creates more work for them in having to adjust their budget according to your packages.