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International Rescue Committee (IRC) in New York City launched an online pilot program this past October that connected donation dollar amounts to specific actions the organization takes to help refugees.

The “gift basket” program, launched in time for the holiday season, took visitors to the micro-site FromHarmToHome.org, where potential donors could click through donation amounts in categories such as health, education and safety. For example, donors clicking on the $100 donation in the education basket would see that amount could enable two Afghan girls to attend school for one year.

“With this new initiative, we wanted to offer our donors a new and exciting way to support the IRC. So we thought that by connecting the ask amount on the basket donation forms to specific services we provide, the donors would be able to envision how their gift will benefit refugees,” said Giselle Holloway, director of direct response at IRC.

Holloway said the organization broke down the results after the holiday season and she was surprised to see that nearly 35 percent of the gift basket donations were from first-time donors. The concrete actions represented by the gift basket amounts created an opportunity “for us to allow supporters to wrap their mind around our work in a simple and tangible way,” said Holloway, and now the organization employed the same gift basket strategy for Mother’s Day. Results were not available at presstime.

A Web site’s “donate now” button or shopping cart has to be more than a payment-processing center. Take a look at your online donation and payment form. At a minimum, it should have allotted space for a donor’s name, address and credit card information. If it doesn’t have those information requirements, you might be worse off than you thought.

Some organizations are making online payment forms work harder by including additional parts, such as ecommunications sign-ups, donation and payment amounts equated to program actions and donor identification data.

And while there is no magic bullet for online donation forms, organizations must always keep usability and the donor’s experience in mind when designing the page.

Share Our Strength (SOS) equates a dollar amount to what the organization can do with that donation. A donation of $35 can help feed a child three meals for more than a month -- possible by all the partnerships and relationships the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit builds on.

“A small grant can go far leveraging our resources at the federal government level, at the state level, or with other organizations. There is so much more that the dollars can do. By sharing a variety of equivalencies we show the scope of our work,” said Amy Zganjar, director of development at SOS.

“If there’s one great truth, it’s that your results are going to vary from organization-to-organization. There is not one, single, best donation form,” said Dave Hart, chief technology officer at Austin-based online fundraising firm Convio.

Hart explained that organizations should not be “thinking about that first donation as the goal of the relationship -- it’s just one step along in building a long-term relationship.” Creating an online donation and payment form that goes beyond a simple transaction will give the organization the opportunity to continue the relationship.

Malcolm Logan, Blackbaud Interactive client manager, explained that organizations should use the online donation and payment form page to enlist donors in higher engagement opportunities because, “They are the ones making a more significant commitment than most of your Web traffic.”

IRC allows donors to choose which ecommunications they want to receive. Holloway said while it’s important that organizations don’t SPAM and contact donors without their expressed opt-in, IRC was considering a general ecommunications opt-in. That way, IRC will be able to segment communications based on donor behavior rather than offering donors a preference before they completely understand the organization’s work.

Organizations can ask potential donors to opt-in to ecommunications or ask identifying questions that can be used to target communication to boost engagement, said Logan. “So you are moving away from a purely transactional model to really building a relationship during the course of the actual transaction,” he said.

But keep identifying questions to a minimum -- and limit it to data that you can actually use. Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth (CTY) asks potential donors if they are a parent, alumnus or friend of the program to segment future communications based on that relationship to the organization.

But identifying questions come after transactional information to battle drop-off rates from the page. “Donors are more likely to drop off if the credit card is later and you kill them with ‘how did you hear about us? What’s your favorite color?’ I’m exaggerating -- but not by much,” said Valerie Lambert, assistant director of development at CTY.

“You shouldn’t collect more data than is necessary. It should only be data that you’re going to use and it shouldn’t bog down the user because the online user is about immediacy. It’s very important that you let them take care of business and be done,” she said.

Blake Groves, client success evangelist at Convio, explained that organizations should stay away from long, onerous forms and stick with identifying questions that will help the relationship.

For example, a health organization battling a particular disease might want to ask if the donor is afflicted or knows someone who is. Knowing that information might change the tone and type of communications sent to that donor. “If you are not going to be savvy in how you are going to use the extra information, then you definitely want to streamline as much as possible if you don’t have plans to use that advance profile,” said Groves. He said organizations should test whether identifying questions drive up the abandonment rate -- and if the abandonment loss is worth the data information harvested.

This article is from NPT Instant Fundraising, a publication of The NonProfit Times.