The “Secret Sauce” of Online Giving: Speed, Speed, and More Speed!

You’ve heard the three rules of real estate investment: location, location, location? Well here’s your insider scoop on Mogiv’s Three Rules of Online Giving: speed, speed, and SPEED!

Seriously. That’s it. Make it fast. Make it functional. Make it easy. And see what an impact that can make!

The reason we are so adamant about spotlighting speed – and the reason we’ve made that such a priority for our platform – is that this continues to be an area where churches struggle.

Back in 2012, The Rocket Company surveyed hundreds of church websites and found that – on average – it took 3 minutes and 10 seconds to give a gift on a church website. (For comparison, you could give a gift to Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in a mere 1:04. Even Mitt Romney had cut donation times down to 1:35!)

If you think our giving processes have probably improved in the past four years, think again! Rich Birch at unseminary.com recently attempted gifts to 10 of the biggest churches in America. He found that three minutes is still the norm. That’s crazy! How is it 3x easier to support a politician than it is to support the spread of The Gospel??

The takeaway here is that hundreds and thousands of churches are taking a “pre-mobile” approach to an increasingly mobile generation. What’s the difference between pre-mobile and today? Two words: attention span. Thanks to smartphones, human attention spans have dwindled to an average of 8 seconds. We now trail even goldfish who can concentrate on one thing for an impressive 9 seconds.

Marketers and content creators recognize this reality and have tailored their approaches to account for these shrinking attention spans. So why do churches continue to think we’ll be the exception to the rule? If your members and guests (read: your potential givers) can’t even stay on the same Buzzfeed list or YouTube video for more than 30 seconds, is it any surprise that they bail out halfway through a giving process that takes four or five times that long? Of course not!

Don’t let this happen to you! Go right now and do an audit of your church’s giving process. If you don’t typically give online, make an exception today! Run through the entire process from start to finish and time yourself.

Specifically, be on the lookout for these four things.

1. Visibility On Homepage: If I’ve been on your website for more than 10 seconds, and am still not sure where the giving page is, you’ve already lost me. Be proud of your giving page! Don’t hide the link under a bushel. (Or on the footer. Or on an image carousel. Or on a dropdown list of 15 other links.) Make sure your “Giving” button on your homepage, preferably as part of the primary navigation bar.
2. Simplicity of Process: When it comes to digital giving, mouse clicks are like golf strokes. The fewer the better! The best giving platforms have removed every unnecessary step and every unnecessary field. These people are trying to support your ministry, not apply for a home loan! If it’s not essential for the completion of the transaction, don’t ask for it. I’m looking at you, “Church That Requires Me To Create An Account Before I Can Give.” Stop that!
3. Flexible Recurring Giving: You want to know the fastest way to get someone to give 12 gifts to your church? Have them create a recurring gift that automatically processes each month! Recurring giving is an absolute game changer for church finances. Some savvy churches are even making this their default web-giving option. Whatever you do, make sure recurring donations to your church are just as fast and just as flexible as one-time gifts.
4. Page Load Times: This relates more to your website infrastructure than your giving platform, but it’s just as important! Studies have shown that 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. If you notice slow load times and clunky navigation, talk to your favorite web professional about how to improve!

This post was written by Kent Woodyard, Director of Business Development at MoGiv. We love them. If you;re looking for an online giving solution that works right out of the box, check them out. Mention us, and they just might through you some love.