Launch a Customizable Donation Form for Your Monthly Giving Program

Updated: January 9, 2025

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To ensure your charity's fundraising is sustainable, it’s important to work on donor retention. Charities need to take newly-won donors and encourage them to stick with your cause for the long haul. One way to do this is through a monthly giving program, designed to convert donors who give once into long-term donors who give on a recurring basis.

Having an online donation form optimized to drive monthly giving is an important component of your monthly giving strategy. A targeted, optimized donation form can help turn your donors into long-term supporters.

A CanadaHelps Customizable Donation Form is optimized and easy to set up so you can start collecting donations in minutes. Best of all, no coding or design skills are required!

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9 Easy Steps to Launch a Monthly Donation Form That Will Increase Fundraising:

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1. Login to your CanadaHelps charity account, then go to the Donation Forms tab.

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2. Click “Create new form” to set up a form. Begin creating a Custom Donation Form specifically for collecting monthly donations.

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3. Give your form a name and choose a form type. You have 3 different options to choose from: Full form, Multi-step, or a One Page Form with Tribute First Form.

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4. Under the Core Settings tab, you have the option of allowing your donors to choose which fund to donate to and whether you’d like to display your fundraising progress.

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5. Also under Core Settings, you may set up your form’s Donation Options for accepting both “One-time & Monthly donations” or only "One Time" or “Monthly donations”. You can also turn off tax receipts in the bottom of this section.

Tip: Choose the “Monthly donations” option to drive sustainable funding for long-term projects.

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6. In the Donor Options tab, you can customize more donation settings. Apply custom questions to ask your donors, let donors leave a message with their donation, and enable an optional donation to CanadaHelps. As well as enable mailing list opt-in, offering phone number collection and choosing Donor Dedication preferences.

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7. Under the Donation Amounts tab you can set up your own custom donations amounts or enable the expert algorithm to do so using the Smart Sums feature. Whether by customizing or enabling Smart Sums, we recommend providing suggested donation amounts for donors. Let donors know the tangible impact of each donation amount. There will always be the option for donors to enter a donation amount of their choosing.‍

Tip: Neuro-fundraising research shows that “anchoring” your donors’ minds by asking for a higher amount motivates them to donate more.

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8. To further customize your form, you can customize your settings and enter more details under these sections:

Under the Form Setup tab:

• ‍Thank You Email Messages – these will appear in the donation confirmation email that CanadaHelps sends to your donors on your behalf.‍
• Analytics – if you have Google Analytics, set your information here so you can track the performance of your donation form and get even more insights on each donation you receive.

Under the Form Branding tab:‍

• ‍Colour & Style – get creative by adding some colours and a compelling image to make your form stand out.‍
• Brand eCards – display beautiful, ready-to-use eCards or upload your own!‍
• Linked & Embedded Options – add logos, header images and descriptive text.

Once you’re done, click on “Save” to view your new form!
Tip: Enhance your form’s branding by using your charity’s colours, make your form title compelling, and use a direct, short description so donors know who you are what you’re raising donations for.

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9. When you’re ready to start collecting donations with your form, click on the Donation Forms tab in your account dashboard’s main navigation menu. Your form will now appear in the list. Select “Embed” to copy and paste the form’s code so that you can put it on a dedicated monthly giving page on your website.

Alternatively, you can share a direct link to your form by clicking on “URL” to copy and paste the form code in emails, social media posts, and other communications to your donors.

Tip: Having a donation form on your website keeps your donors where you need them to be in that crucial moment when they are about to give.

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In Conclusion

By following these easy steps, you can start collecting monthly donations and create a steady, reliable source of recurring revenue for your charity.

Schedule an appointment with our fundraising experts today and learn how Customizable Donations Forms can meet your charity's unique fundraising needs.

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