Making donations is an important way to give back as a business. Nonprofits do important work. Instead of donating a portion of my income to one nonprofit, I spread out the love among several.
I used to spend quite a bit of my time volunteering. Sometimes volunteer hours are harder to give. I even wrote about the value of my volunteer time for WordCamp Orange County.
Supporting Nonprofits
Ten percent of my profit (which goes up and down so sometimes it’s a larger percentage) is dedicated to donations to nonprofits. I support a variety of causes from nature conservation, to ministries, tech education, to the underserved.
Recurring donations are a monthly subscription (think Netflix). It is much easier for me to do it this way than one-time donations.
I also support Sea Turtle, Inc. with my Amazon Smile Purchases and I regularly donate books and clothes to my local Goodwill. I’ve been doing that since my late husband passed away in 2016.
How Do You Spread the Love?
My friend Beth from Adventure Auto Glass supports animal charities from their business. I love this so much. It’s part of who they are as people and resonates in their brand. What nonprofits does your business support?
I have no idea why it still looks like a button set from 2001’s Dreamweaver. I really don’t. PayPal is huge. They can easily customize their button.
But they didn’t.
What is the alternative to PayPal?
I’m so glad you asked.
If your site is built on the WordPress content management system (not hosted on WordPress.com which is totally different), then you can install an online donation plugin, namely Give.
Of course, there are plugins in the WordPress repo to style the PayPal button and other donation plugins to choose from. I worked for ThoughtHouse and GiveWP was our client. Of course, I’m telling you about GiveWP. That’s my disclaimer and I’m proud of it.
The Give Donation Button and Form Looks Better.
The Give donation form looks better than the default PayPal button. Period.
To me this is the most compelling argument against PayPal donation button.
It may not be the best feature technically, but from a marketing standpoint, I think design matters.
PayPal is still the payment gateway if you’re using Give standard. Give’s forms are modern and stylish. Better yet, they inherit their design from your WordPress theme. What does this mean? It means your donation button will not clash with your website. Oh yeah, it’s mobile responsive, too.
Why does design matter?
When you’re asking people for money trust is involved.
Aesthetics matter. Branding matters.
Something that looks up-to-date is more trustworthy. Period.
Exhibit A. Artaxis Fellowship.
Artaxis used Give to fund a scholarship for a summer residency. You can read more about that story here.
They have a custom donation page with imagery, a description, and a modern, clean donation form on the site. This is the free version of Give. They are not paying for add-ons. They’re using PayPal.
So, it’s pretty obvious which looks better, right?
Exhibit B. WP Media Pro.
Jason Tucker used Give recently to crowdfund for video equipment to broadcast and archive local WordPress meetups.
Again. He could have easily used PayPal. He’s using the free version of Give — no fancy payment gateway add-ons, just PayPal standard.
He could have used PayPal’s button. But he didn’t.
Even better, go visit the site. He uses an image of himself, reinforcing his role in WordPress. He tells the story. Lists the need. Lists the equipment. It’s no wonder he met his goal in 24 hours.
Notice one of the features Jason took advantage of — the button color matches his site’s colors. This form looks different from the one on Artaxis. Same plugin, different themes and customizations.
Jason is using the progress bar, and is naming the donation levels with levels of appreciation: “$25 Thanks! $50 You are Awesome! $100 Thank you, thank you, thank you” and so on.