Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Navigation Bar

  • About
  • Services
  • What Clients Say
  • Contact

5 Ways to Leverage Social Proof on Your Nonprofit Website

December 26, 2023 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

A guest post by Anne Stefanyk, Kanopi Studios

Imagine this: You’re looking for a new restaurant to try on a Friday night. In your research, you come across an option that looks intriguing. However, the restaurant has only a handful of online reviews. You decide to keep searching and come across another eatery that has hundreds of reviews that are mostly positive, including reviews from established local guides. Because it seems like many other credible people have tried the restaurant and enjoyed it, you choose to go to the second establishment.

This example demonstrates the idea of social proof—the psychological phenomenon where people determine the right way to act based on the decisions and opinions of others.

Social proof is a powerful marketing tool for nonprofits. It shows potential new supporters that your organization already receives support from many other reliable individuals, and is therefore worthy of their support, too. 

In this guide, we’ll review our top tips for leveraging social proof within your nonprofit website and online fundraising campaigns to build credibility and trust with your audience. Along the way, we’ll review examples from the best nonprofit websites to demonstrate what a few tips look like in action.

1. Feature supporter testimonials

Just like a restaurant review, a supporter testimonial shows potential donors that your nonprofit is backed by trustworthy people who make smart investment decisions.

To get a good balance of trusted voices, seek out testimonials from different types of supporters, such as:

  • Donors: Interview long-time or major donors about why they’re passionate about your cause and what drives them to give.
  • Volunteers: Ask highly engaged volunteers about their favorite aspects of your mission and what their volunteer involvement means to them.
  • Corporate partners/sponsors: Get quotes from your corporate partners about why their business values align with your nonprofit’s mission and why they sponsor your events year after year.

Showcase these testimonials on your nonprofit’s blog and online donation page, as well as in your email newsletters and social media posts.

2. Showcase community impact

Show potential new supporters that your nonprofit receives backing and support from your entire community and that you’re a responsible community steward. Demonstrate the extent of your community impact by including these elements on your website:

  • Community member testimonials, including testimonials from beneficiaries who have been supported by your nonprofit’s services
  • Metrics that reveal your nonprofit’s impact, such as how many community members you help or the size of your geographic reach
  • Lists of your community partnerships, such as collaborations with other nonprofits or local schools

For example, let’s say your nonprofit provides healthcare resources and support to your local community. Kanopi’s healthcare website design guide recommends building trust through inspiring testimonials that include a photo of the individual and direct quotes from the patient or their family members. Consider creating a dedicated “Testimonials” or “Impact” page that also includes statistics about the number of community members you serve and other local healthcare organizations you partner with.

3. Include suggested donation amounts

Offering suggested donation amounts on your nonprofit’s giving form makes it easier for donors to determine how much to contribute. When donors see how much other people are giving, they’ll make their decision based on those amounts to align with the norm.

Bloomerang’s guide to nonprofit donation pages offers a few useful tips for choosing and displaying your suggested giving amounts:

  • Base your suggested donation amounts on your median donation amount. For example, if your median donation amount is $25, you can set your donation suggestions at $25, $50, $75, and $100.
  • Highlight your most popular gift amount. For example, take a look at how the CARE online donation page highlights the $300 option with a note saying “Most people are donating $300 right now.” New donors will think to themselves, “If most people are giving $300, then maybe so should I!”

Screenshot of the CARE donation page showing the $300 donation amount highlighted with a note that says “Most people are donating $300 right now.”

  • Use A/B testing to determine the best combination. A/B testing is the process of changing just one element on your online donation form (in this case, your suggested giving amounts) to determine which combination is most effective for driving conversions.

Be careful not to set your suggested donation amounts too low. Research from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business shows that low donation suggestions may increase your donation rate but decrease your overall average donation amount.

Instead, default to suggesting higher donation amounts. Even if donors don’t take you up on your highest suggestions, higher options tend to lead donors to give more than they otherwise would.

4. Create an exclusive donor circle

Invite donors to join an exclusive group of like-minded people by creating a donor circle.

Create different tiers for your circle based on giving level and offer varying benefits at each tier. Then, give each tier a name based on your nonprofit’s mission.

For example, Georgia Audubon’s Leadership Giving Circle is divided into these four tiers:

  • Cerulean Circle ($10,000+)
  • Roseate Circle ($5,000-$9,999)
  • Scarlet Circle ($2,500-$4,999)
  • Chestnut Circle ($1,000-$2,499)

Description of the Cerulean Circle of the Georgia Audubon Leadership Giving Circles

Each tier includes unique benefits along with an invitation to the annual Leadership Giving Circle birding trip, which is an opportunity to connect with fellow like-minded donors.

Feature a donor wall on your website or at your nonprofit’s headquarters that includes the names of all the donors in each circle (except those who wish to be anonymous). This can show potential donors the extent of your program and all the other donors who they’ll have the opportunity to connect with.

5. Display awards and accolades

Your nonprofit may have received awards or recognition from trustworthy organizations to acknowledge your positive influence. Feature any awards or acknowledgments on your website’s homepage, header, or footer to demonstrate your organization’s credibility.

For example, consider adding these accolades to your website:

  • Charity Navigator rating
  • Charity Watch grade
  • Guidestar Seal of Transparency

Demonstrating recognition from these trusted organizations is another effective way to increase donors’ confidence in your organization and the likelihood that they’ll financially support your cause.

If you need more support as you incorporate these tips into your nonprofit website, don’t hesitate to reach out to a nonprofit website professional. A web consultant can leverage their expertise to help your nonprofit tell its story more effectively and promote the idea of social proof in every aspect of your web design.


As Founder and CEO of Kanopi Studios, Anne Stefanyk helps create clarity around project needs, and turns client conversations into actionable outcomes. She enjoys helping clients identify their problems, and then empowering the Kanopi team to execute great solutions.

Anne is an advocate for open source and co-organizes the Bay Area Drupal Camp. When she’s not contributing to the community or running her thoughtful web agency, she enjoys yoga, meditation, treehouses, dharma, cycling, paddle boarding, kayaking, and hanging with her nephew.

https://twitter.com/Anne_Kanopi

https://www.drupal.org/u/annabella

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annestefanyk/

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Enhancing Your Site’s SEO Value: 4 Tips for Nonprofits

November 15, 2021 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Are you looking to boost your nonprofit’s website’s traffic? Maybe your site sees little traffic, only a few thousand visitors per month or so. But you know that you could be doing more when it comes to promoting your website. After all, more website traffic means greater visibility for your mission and even a donation boost!

Using search engine optimization (SEO) strategies is a popular strategy among nonprofit organizations to increase their website engagement. SEO is a set of techniques used to boost a website’s visibility on search engine results pages by improving its appearance, content, and technical structure.

If you’re interested in adopting SEO strategies but don’t know where to start, these tips will set you on the right path:

  1. Incorporate keywords into your website content.
  2. Offer valuable educational content.
  3. Streamline your site’s user experience.
  4. Build a strong internal and external link profile.

SEO can be a great addition to your nonprofit’s digital strategy. It can supplement your other online marketing efforts to create a well-rounded digital presence and grow your audience. Let’s dive in!

1. Incorporate keywords into your website content.

In the context of SEO, keywords are the terms or phrases that people type into a search bar when they’re looking for information. When you use keywords naturally in your online content, you signal to search engines that your content is relevant to the terms and questions people are searching for.

For instance, let’s say your nonprofit supports girls entering the STEM field. Some popular keywords that are relevant to your mission might be “scholarships for girls in STEM” or “conferences for girls in STEM.” By including these keywords in your blog posts or “about” page, you’re telling search engines that your content is relevant to searches for STEM opportunities.

Also, consider keywords that are popular locally when crafting your site content. For instance, if your organization is looking for local volunteers or donors, you might target keywords like “volunteer opportunities near [your city’s name]” or “nonprofits near [your city’s name].” This can help your local community members connect with your volunteer or donation opportunities.

2. Offer valuable educational content.

You can’t just add your keyword to a page a bunch of times and expect your site to rank higher. That’s called “keyword stuffing,” and it’s highly frowned upon by Google and other search engines. These platforms may devalue your content if you adopt this practice.

Instead, your content must have value. If your website features original, engaging, valuable educational content, search engines will note that your content is useful for users, boosting your chances of ranking higher on results pages.

Use your organization’s institutional knowledge and expertise to write valuable content. For instance, let’s say your organization helps combat the effects of climate change in the Florida Everglades. You might create an in-depth, multimedia guide that explains the issue and educates your audience on the implications of unmitigated climate change on the ecosystem.

3. Streamline your site’s user experience.

A good page experience doesn’t only encourage visitors to browse and return to your site—it can also impact your search results rankings. In November 2020, Google announced it would start considering page experience when ranking pages.

Make sure each page of your site, from your homepage to your online donation form, offers visitors a user-friendly experience by:

  • Using a clear page structure: Each page should have a clearly defined title with an H1 tag. All subsequent page sections should use heading tags in descending order (H2, H3, etc.). A clear page structure makes it easy for visitors to browse through your content and quickly find what they’re looking for.
  • Ensuring your website has a fast load speed. The recommended load time for website pages is just two seconds. If your website loads any slower, you’ll start losing visitors. To avoid this, compress all images, eliminate unnecessary characters from your code, and avoid complex design elements that require a heavy coding lift.
  • Crafting an aesthetically pleasing design: Incorporate design best practices such as using white space and multimedia elements to break up chunks of text. 

In addition to these tips, ensure your website is mobile-friendly. According to this nonprofit fundraising statistics page, half of all nonprofit website traffic last year came from mobile and tablet users. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, a large swath of visitors can’t use it. Review how your website looks in mobile view and adjust any formatting issues as needed.

4. Build a strong internal and external link profile.

As you start building your SEO strategy, create a plan for using valuable links both inside and outside of your website.

Each page of your website should include links to other pages on your site using in-text links and buttons. A strong system of internal links helps search engine crawlers move through your website quickly and efficiently.

An external or backlink is a link on a different website or blog that leads back to your website. A strong backlink profile signals to Google that your content is legitimate and valuable for users.

The most effective strategy to build your backlink profile is creating valuable internal content on your website that encourages external sources to link to your pages. You can also begin writing guest blogs for other organizations’ websites that link back to your own site. The more reputable the organization, the more powerful having a backlink on their website is for your organization.

Your linking strategy can help spread awareness of your organization and establish your brand as trustworthy and authoritative.

Ultimately, keep your audience members in mind to build a strong nonprofit SEO strategy. What are your nonprofit’s current and prospective donors, volunteers, and other supporters searching for? How can you help connect them with the information they need? If you can appeal to supporters’ interests and help fulfill their search intent, you can effectively improve your search engine rankings.

 


Anne Stefanyk head shotAs Founder and CEO of Kanopi Studios, Anne helps create clarity around project needs, and turns client conversations into actionable outcomes. She enjoys helping clients identify their problems, and then empowering the Kanopi team to execute great solutions.

Anne is an advocate for open source and co-organizes the Bay Area Drupal Camp. When she’s not contributing to the community or running her thoughtful web agency, she enjoys yoga, meditation, treehouses, dharma, cycling, paddle boarding, kayaking, and hanging with her nephew.

https://twitter.com/Anne_Kanopi

https://www.drupal.org/u/annabella

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annestefanyk/

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Yes! Please send me tips from Communicate! Consulting.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Copyright © 2025 · The 411 Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in