5 Interactive Donating Ideas

You’ve found our Interactive Donating Ideas. That means you know your supporters are increasingly tech savvy and highly visually-literate and you are working hard to engage them. You’re on the right path! Here you can explore the different ways you could approach Interactive Donating to turn your year-round fundraising activity or Giving Day into a memorable donor experience.

First, let’s quickly recap what Interactive Donating actually is.

What is Interactive Donating?

Interactive Donating is a new, visual way to represent donations online. Instead of using traditional lists of names and messages, Interactive Donating takes an interactive and engaging approach to communicating supporter impact. Simply animating dedications can encourage donations, and deeply engage visitors. Read more about the benefits of Interactive Donating and how it works.

Interactive Donating Ideas

1. The Pleaser

The Pleaser is the most straightforward interactive donating idea. You choose a lovely or exciting image for the action. For example, a field of sunflowers under a blue sky where each flower glows brighter on hover and a message is revealed. The key here is that it delights visitors, being pleasing to look at and use. 

Pleasure also comes from reading the various messages and dedications. Typically with straightforward interactive donating, messages continue on a rotation, not appearing in the same place twice. Putting the visitor in control enhances the interactive nature of the activity. You could go totally abstract or take from nature – don’t limit your creativity.

Creativity that is truly engaging is increasingly challenging in the online world, especially as donors get younger. For that same reason, however, even your simple Interactive donating pleaser needs to be high quality. Millennials and Gen Z expect a high user experience and have a low tolerance for any friction. They also seek to be an integral part of social impact and interactivity helps them see how they are part of the action. 

2. The Teaser

The idea of the teaser comes from knowing how much people cannot resist a good mystery. Not to be confused with a film teaser, the Interactive Donating teaser could be a blank wall on your website where each donation made reveals another section of an image or message. This reminds supporters that each small contribution is part of a bigger picture. Your teaser could even reveal a puzzle that visitors need to solve. 

Visitors will surely keep returning to a mystery teaser. This is also a fantastic way to incentivise more donations. The best way to engage visitors with a teaser is to know your supporters. Be age appropriate, weave in a theme related to your cause or focus, and even add your own unique style and brand elements to make it truly distinctive. 

3. Permanent Placement

Permanent placement of a company name has traditionally referred to placing a plaque or similar in a public place for passersby to see. In the digital age, the concept remains the same albeit virtual. It is different from a regular interactive wall where messages appear on rotation. In this case, when a supporter donates, their name is permanently placed somewhere on your webpage.

There are supporters, particularly organisations and clubs, who still need to get their brand in front of eyes. Your website is a good source of “traffic”. Placement on your site provides them with the social responsibility check. It also gives visibility to your collaborations and impact. Think about where you could best display these names. Is it on a dedicated page, or across your homepage? 

Another idea is creating a virtual room and allowing each donor to “buy” an item, such as a seat in a digital auditorium. Their plaque would be permanently displayed on a seat of their choice, or a brick on a wall, or a roof in a village.

4. The Honour Wall

You could create a digital wall that honours donors or benefactors. Donor walls are not new in 

the physical world and have already moved from posters or billboards to digital signage. Now, we take it online. With an Interactive Donating Honour Wall you can give back to your donors.

As you know, recognition is crucial for donor retention. Your Interactive Donor Wall will benefit you in the same way, extending beyond the thank you received after each donation. Honouring donors by telling their stories also helps cultivate new relationships. People connect more deeply with individuals, so focusing on specific supporters or team members of an organisation is better than just broad recognition of a club or organisation. Benefits are heightened with younger donors who tend to develop stronger relationships with the organisations they support. 

5. Seasonal Designs

Seasonal designs provide a great excuse for keeping your page fresh. While this is more costly in terms of graphic design work, the steady engagement and increase in donations could be much more beneficial than running the same interactive wall all year long. 

The upcoming Christmas giving season remains an important time for fundraising despite inflation. Christmas Interactive Donating is simple, super fun, and can still reflect your charity’s personality. As the online fundraising landscape grows more crowded, your activity needs to be more targeted, captivating, and exciting.

How to get started with mycause 

Getting started with mycause is easy. We work closely with charities to develop your ideas. The mycause team then take care of all design work and the implementation (for a set up fee). There is no platform fee and your donors follow the same donation journey. Follow this link for more information, to reach out to our team, or to see more examples.