On-line Upgrades - The Easiest Way To Boost Your Donations?

When we set up Sponsor.ie we added a little tick box to "Cover The Charity's Fees". When donors tick the box it increases their donation to cover all credit card, admin fees, etc. so that the charity walks away with the full original amount the donor was trying to give.

Essentially it's an upgrade - on Sponsor.ie it increases a donation by about 4%. (Sales pitch: Sponsor.ie doesn't charge any monthly, annual or registration fees. No risk)

We shamelessly stole it from a small Irish competitor, and I'm delighted to see more and more of the big fundraising sites rolling this out now.

On Sponsor.ie between 10% - 20% of people tick the box. It's not huge but it's an easy boost of income to charities for the sake of a tiny tick box. It should be on every charity's website.

A different on-line giving platform came out with their results this week and have managed to get about 95% of donors ticking the box...amazing! How did they do it? By having the box ticked as a default. The donation is rounded up unless the donor specifically unticks the box.

Personally I think that's a bit cheeky...but brilliant. And having seen the 95% figure I'm seriously considering rolling this out on Sponsor.ie.

The next logical question is: How far can we take this?

Through testing different wording and different layouts I've no doubt we can boost the number of donors that want to cover the donation fees. But more than that, what if the tick box wasn't just about covering the fees?

What about a tick box to increase donations by 10%, 50% or 100%? "If you tick this box we'll double your donation and double the impact you have."

Or what about adding a small fixed fee. "If you tick this box we'll add €5 to your donation to save one more child's life."

Let's test it...