Count Your Clicks

The end of the year brings with it a tremendous amount of giving to nonprofits. And there is certainly a large amount of that giving that takes place online.

In a future blog post I plan to talk about trends Blackbaud is seeing about online giving, but for now I want to focus on a simple question:

How many clicks does it take for someone to donate online to your organization?

I've seen nonprofit websites where the answer is anywhere from 1 click to 10 clicks. I'm sure that if you polled a group of usability specialists, then they could probably give you a scientifically or statistically proven value.

Let's say the magic number is 3 clicks. Does that mean you need to change your website? No. It means you need to test and find your own magic number.

In some cases, 5 or 6 clicks might be right. In some cases, 1 or 2 clicks might be right. In a very extreme case, 8 or 10 clicks might be right too. When in doubt — test.

Right now, many savvy nonprofits are doing just that. They are testing a variety of online giving scenarios. Given the high volumes right now this is the best time to do that testing. Their future results won't be based on guessing. Stop guessing. Start testing.