This is just what everyone is afraid of: As reported in The NonProfit Times at One-Third Of Web Donations Didn't Go Through, a recent experience by fundraising agency Amergent showed a lot of stuff just not working. They gave online donations of $25 to 30 Catholic charities. Here's what happened:
Ten out of the 30 online gifts could not be processed online: five organizations required the mailing address to match the credit card billing address, two didn't accept online donations, and for two the donation processes did not go through. One organization had a bill-to company requirement.
Okay, it's a small sample size, so it's not reasonable to call these results typical. But that's a stunning failure rate. If your direct-mail caging or data-processing vendor were screwing up that bad, you'd fire them, immediately.
The only excuse would be that online revenue is too small for an organization to spend a lot getting it right. Of course, that's a self-perpetuating decision: If your system is rejecting your donors' attempts to give online, you won't get a lot of online gifts.
Right now, go online and try to give your organization a gift. If something goes wrong, fix it.
Thanks to AFP Blog: Recent News of Note for the tip.
