Taming the Octopus:  How Small to Midsized Nonprofits Can Optimize Fundraising with Omnicommerce

Most nonprofits have made the shift to digital giving. While cash and check donations haven’t sunsetted completely, they now represent just 20 percent of giving (16% checks, 4% cash), according to an industry report. But while digital giving has lots of upsides, it can be tricky for small to midsized nonprofits to master because it can involve money coming in from all directions—online, in-app, text-to-give, donation links via email, on-site, social media, livestream donating, and more—and a variety of payment methods that allow donors to choose what’s most convenient for them, including credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers/ACH. It’s called “omnicommerce”—meaning a fundraising strategy that integrates all the various donor engagement and payment channels into a unified, seamless experience. But how do you organize what could seem like an overwhelming array of engagement techniques and payment types to reach more supporters and generate more funding?   

Let’s think of omnicommerce for nonprofits like an octopus. Your digital giving platform is the brains of the octopus, and your donor engagement channels—your website, your social media, your email marketing, your text communications, your livestreams, your on-location events, your direct mail, your QR code entry points—are the arms.  Like an octopus, ecommerce is agile, responsive, and coordinated across all limbs. Also like an octopus, omnicommerce, when done well, is extremely smart. You can leverage the skills of the octopus to optimize fundraising for your nonprofit.  

First, let’s consider how many arms your octopus currently has. Fittingly, we’ve provided eight example donor engagement channels above, but your current omnicommerce approach might have fewer. If so, that’s fine. Your nonprofit may want to keep your omnicommerce strategy leaner or grow it to eight or more channels over time. Use whatever size octopus that’s best for your team, resources, and fundraising goals.  

Now let’s step through some key ways to make sure your omnicommerce fundraising octopus is doing all it can to optimize your fundraising.  

We’re Roc Giving, powered by Payroc. We specialize in serving small to midsized nonprofits. We support your missions by providing an affordable digital giving platform with intuitive tools, just the right amount of features, transparent pricing, and modern reporting and user interfaces.  

Core Features of an Effective Omnicommerce Fundraising Strategy 

Before we get into the omnicommerce tactics for small to midsized nonprofits, let’s be clear on what an exemplary octopus even looks like. As stated above, a good omnicommerce strategy conveys a unified, seamless experience to your donors. Essentially, the octopus always represents your brand and thus your organization itself, regardless of which arm of the octopus a donor may be engaging with at any given time. 

• Consistent branding—all the arms of the octopus have the same look and feel. The colors, typefaces, and imagery you use should be extremely consistent across donor engagement channels.  You don’t want one red arm, one blue arm, and one polka-dot arm.  
• Consistent messaging—whenever the octopus speaks or shares information or stories, the voice is the same.  
• Intelligent awareness—one arm always knows what the other arms are doing. Overall, they act in concert.  
• Unified payment experience—when donors give money to your organization, the checkout experience looks and feels like “you” and is consistent across channels and payment types.  
• The brains of the octopus centralize channels. Your digital giving platform pulls in and organize and store all the donor and engagement data and make it easy for your team to see and analyze.

I. Centralize the Donor Experience 

• Use your digital giving platform to centralize and unify the donor experience, whether donors are giving on the web, on mobile, on social media, with text-to-give, or in person at events.  
• Start a campaign on your digital giving platform and carry the same form and links across arms of the octopus.  
• Use tools like QR codes so donors can easily jump to your fundraising page.  

II. Optimize Your Campaigns 

• Be sure your donation pages are mobile optimized.  
• Use your digital giving platform to A/B test donation calls to action across arms of the octopus.  
• Keep track of which CTAs and arms of the octopus are gaining the most traction.  
• Use link-in-bio on social media to guide donors to your giving pages. 

III. Use Your Octopus at Events 

• Your digital giving platform isn’t only for virtual giving. You can use it at in-person events.   
• Use QR codes and text-to-give to capture more donors at events.  
• Ask for recurring giving and pledges at events. 

IV. Analyze and Leverage Your Data 

• Your digital giving platform collects valuable data. Use it to engage with your donors.  
• Analyze donations by earmarked program, specific interest, gift size, giving history, engagement level, and demographic. See what patterns you can find that might open the door to more recurring giving.   
• Create tailored recurring giving campaigns with unique asks for different segments.  
• Map the donor journey across arms of the octopus. Use cross-channel thinking.  
• Add UTM parameters to all links—short codes added to your URLs that tell you where someone clicked. You can analyze this data in Google Analytics or tools like Bitly for basic click tracking.  
• Track email and SMS engagement. Look at open, click, and conversion rates.    
• Tag donors by channel, with segments like gave via text, donated at event, clicked IG link in bio.  

Conclusion 

The omnicommerce octopus might seem a little scary or daunting, but it’s actually your friend. Get to know it and find ways that it can help you maximize fundraising across channels.  

Roc Giving’s digital giving platform can be your Roctopus. It includes all the digital tools you need to boost donor retention—without the confusing complexity and high costs you don’t need.  

• Custom campaigns: Fully brandable donation pages and campaigns.  
• Donor choice: One-time, recurring, or pledge-based giving.  
• Smart insights: Real-time analytics to guide decisions.  
• Fee offset option: Let donors choose to cover fees.  
• One-stop shop: With Roc Giving, online giving and payment processing are unified. No need for separate processes, reporting, and support.   
• Dedicated support: Access to a dedicated team of actual human experts, not chatbots, for one-on-one support whenever you need it.   

Visit https://payroc.com/solutions/roc-giving/ or contact us at rocgiving@payroc.com to get started. You can also schedule a demo here.