Virtual Gifts are, in most cases, non-physical.

Typically, a supporter will select their gift from a menu of gift choices on the charity’s regular or one-off Virtual Gifts page on their website, each gift having a set price. This gift can be sent to whomever the supporter chooses, whether it is a member of their family, friends, a stranger, or even to themselves. The supporter will be presented with the chance to Gift Aid the gift when making the transaction. Once the payment has gone through, the recipient will receive confirmation, instructions on how to redeem the gift, also the single-use code for redeeming the gift. If the gift is meant for a specific date or occasion, delivery can be scheduled for a specified later date too.

Great Gift Aid*able option as economy cools

Non-physical gifts have the advantage that Gift Aid* can potentially be claimed, meaning that charities can currently claim an extra 25p on every £1 donated. Additionally, value-exchange gifts such as Virtual Gifts, also Raffles and Lotteries, are very popular with supporters. Perhaps in tight economic times such as these, with energy price hikes and rising inflation, supporters feel that they are getting something tangible back, such as buying someone a birthday present or sending a specified item to a person in need, whilst still actively supporting their charity.

Setting up and running your charity’s Virtual Gifts need not be painful

We understand that building your Virtual Gifts pages from scratch and then managing them might seem daunting, so we have designed our products to walk you through the process quickly, simply, and painlessly. We can help your charity set up Virtual Gift pages for your one-off as well as regular campaigns, building the pages with our Virtual Gifts Page Builder solution. We can also help you manage those pages if you like, and we can even handle any fulfilment aspects included in the transaction. We can personalise and dispatch physical cards to several recipients in one transaction; we can also collate gift and information kits and deliver physical gifts to the recipients. From Christmas cards to personalised greetings cards; from gift packages to printing and enclosing your charity’s information packs, we can handle it all seamlessly and painlessly for you.

For more information about our Virtual Gifts solutions and a no-obligation call to discuss your requirements, please contact us here.

*For more information about Gift Aid, see www.gov.uk/claim-gift-aid

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Not all Charity Business Response Envelopes are created equal, in fact the design of your charity’s BRE can have a big impact on its success.

We handle hundreds of thousands of charity responses every year, so we know a thing or two about the type of BRE envelopes that work best – and deliver the fastest results – for our clients. So, we thought we’d share some top tips on designing the best envelopes. Read on to discover more.

Our sophisticated mail-handling equipment opens and sorts our charity clients’ responses in the blink of an eye, speeding up the process of banking and thanking and getting campaign funds over to our charity clients as quickly as possible. Any exceptions which can’t be processed by our machines are pulled out for manual handling, which slows things down.

The other aspect to consider is how user-friendly are your BREs? Forms which require greater Supporter-Effort are unlikely to be filled in right to the end, and user inaccuracies are likely to be higher too. The better your forms, the better they will be for your supporters’ experience and engagement, and potentially supporter retention, will be higher too.

Following a few quick and easy design guidelines can lead to faster processing, improved supporter experience, fewer exceptions, and less manual intervention – all of which mean faster banking, greater efficiencies, and quicker results all round for you! Win-win.

Here are our top 8 tips for designing great BREs:

• DL or C6 envelopes work best
• Campaign identifier clearly visible on the envelope. Could be a code, image, or text
• Avoid horseshoe gum envelopes
• Checklist on the back of the envelope ensures supporter is more likely to include everything needed
• Provide two to three reminders on the Checklist, such as:
  a. have you included the donation
  b. have you included the form
  c. did you sign the cheque, etc
• Avoid opt-ins and opt-outs on the envelope. This type of option requires manual handling, which then incurs extra expense and time
• Avoid free gifts such as pens, coasters, stickers, etc. These are often returned by donors who assume they are saving the charity money by doing so
• Avoid glue gum dots or other sticky substances

We are always happy to check our charity clients’ BREs at no extra cost, advising on aspects which improve performance and keep costs down. And of course we offer this free service to clients before anything is printed and sent out to supporters. This ensures that only well-designed envelopes go out to supporters, delivering the best results for our clients and the best experience for their supporters.

Our Chief Commercial Officer (Charity Division), Scott Gray, says:

“Every aspect of Charity response handling is crucial for measuring the success of fundraising campaigns. From BRE, response forms, call handling, variable payment methods and personalised print-on-demand thanking, each one demands a level of detail to make sure the process runs smoothly and we achieve in giving the best possible supporter experience.”

If you would like to know more about our charity expertise and how we could support you and your supporters, we would love to hear from you. If you would like to see how we could support you and improve your bottom line, please contact us here.

High quality solutions designed to help you raise your charity’s impact today.

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Did you know that something as simple as a well-designed Charity Response Form can have a significant impact on its success and the speed at which funds raised can be processed and banked?

There are two main benefits to well-designed forms. Firstly, a clear form can reduce the supporter-effort required to complete them, so your supporters are far more likely to fill them in right to the end – leading to better results for your charity. Secondly, the ideal form can be sorted far more quickly by our sophisticated and automated mail-handling processes, avoiding the need for manual interventions and exceptions, which take far longer than a machine.

Following a few quick and easy design guidelines can lead to faster processing, improved supporter experience, fewer exceptions, and less manual intervention – all of which mean faster banking, greater efficiencies, and quicker results all-round for you! So, what’s the secret to a well-designed form – read on to find out.

Our Top 7 tips for Well-Designed Charity Response Forms

• Paper weight – 70/80 gsm
• Matt finish
• Ideal size is approximately 220mm x 110mm
• Maximum size is A4 Simplex – with any data capture requirements on one side of the form only
• Barcode of about 1cm square, avoiding proximity to the edge of the form or envelope
• It should also contain the campaign code, media code, and customer details/URN as a minimum
• One QR code only on the response device, as a maximum

By following these tips, you should find that your efficiencies increase. And if you are not sure whether your design makes the cut, we are always happy to check forms for our charity clients as a standard part of our service before anything is even printed off or sent out to their supporters. We will advise our clients on any tweaks that will improve performance and keep their costs down. Our approach ensures that only well-designed forms are sent to supporters, thereby delivering the best results for our clients and the best experience for their supporters.

Our Chief Commercial Officer (Charity Division), Scott Gray, says:

“We have the expertise to understand that small details, such as Charity Response Form design, can have a big impact on a charity’s bottom line. We also understand that charities need responses to be processed as quickly as possible.

We serve over 250 charity clients as a company group, so we are in a unique position to know what works best for the not-for-profit sector and we are always keen to share our insights and tips on trends because we are passionate about our charity clients’ success.”

If you would like to learn more about Elovate’s approach and how we could support you and your supporters, click here to get in touch.

High quality solutions designed to help you raise your charity’s impact today.

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Fundraisers work incredibly hard to recruit fresh supporters.

But with research showing it costs five times as much to attract a new supporter as it does to keep one, an equal – if not greater – amount of effort also needs to go into their retention.

And it needs to start from day one of that relationship, from the very moment they sign up.

Supporter expectations are ¬¬high. In the retail world, where communications are often automated and instant, and transactions tracked in real time, every step is smoothed to give a frictionless customer experience.

As a result, whether they’re shopping or supporting a charity – people expect the experience to be easy, with a prompt response at every touchpoint and joined up communications across all channels. And of course, on top of this, they also expect to be kept updated with information, order tracking, offers, and engaging material that make them feel valued and involved.

First steps to boosting retention – our Top Three Tips

For retailers and charities alike, it’s meeting these expectations that has the biggest impact on retention and loyalty, and this is where having the right technology in place pays dividends. Using customer relationship management (CRM) tools makes it much easier to plan exactly how you are going to communicate with the supporter at every stage of their journey with you. Crucially it also enables you to benchmark and record what works and what doesn’t so that you can work out a winning formula.

For powerful supporter communications that drive loyalty from the outset, here are our top three tips:

• The starting point of every supporter’s journey is a speedy acknowledgement of their donation, with a thank you following as quickly as possible via email, post or SMS. It’s also a great opportunity to reinforce their awareness of your brand and mission.
• Personalising communications with the supporter’s personal details will make them more engaging. A supporter should feel acknowledged and know immediately that their specific gift is appreciated and valued by the charity. Your comms messaging should ensure this.
• Try putting yourself in your supporters’ shoes and ask yourself what you would want to know at every touchpoint. Provide clear information on how their donation will be spent, how it will make a difference to the cause and include guidance on how a supporter can continue to make a difference by donating again, and or volunteering, purchasing, participating, etc. It’s important to help them understand clearly how they can support in other ways as well as donating if they want to, after all multiple engagements help to build further commitment.

It’s a journey of course that continues far past the first few weeks and months after initial signup. But putting these first key steps in place will make new supporters feel valued and cared for from the outset. It’s this that will boost the enthusiasm and engagement with your cause, the very cause that prompted them to sign up in the first place, helping to build a sense of loyalty and increase that all-important engagement and retention.

For more information on how we can help support you to achieve this, contact your dedicated account manager or contact us here.

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Increase supporter donations when creating donation pages

The online donation pages on your charity’s website and those for specific appeals play a pivotal role in your fundraising strategy’s success. Our many years’ experience of working with charities has shown us that organisations with effective donation pages will attract more online donations.

With this in mind, we thought we’d share our top tips for creating effective charity donation pages. Web pages that are both preferred by donors and help with conversion rates, leading to increased income and therefore greater possible impact for beneficiaries.

1. Seamless brand experience

Make your brand front and centre so that your donors feel sure about who they are giving to. Your charity’s supporters trust you and your brand, so make sure that your brand is on point at every touchpoint of the customer journey, especially when it comes to donation pages. Seeing a third-party processor can be off putting and cause uncertainty.

2. A donation is not a shopping transaction

If someone is giving, make sure the experience is streamlined, easy, and with no unnecessary obstacles. For example, if a supporter only wants to make a donation, then don’t add the donation to a shopping cart; worse still don’t make it necessary for them to register / login. Barriers like these can put off supporters and impact conversion rates.

3. Make it personal

What will their one-off or monthly gift mean to you and your beneficiaries in quantifiable terms? What impact will they have by giving to you? This can be easily done by showing examples of the impact various donation amounts could have. When the supporter confirms their gift, thank them on screen using their first name; and make it feel personal in the email acknowledgement too.

4. Don’t wear down your supporter with too many questions

Whilst we all want to know as much as we can about our supporters so as to enrich our data and how we communicate, asking too many questions can feel like a blocker to some donors when they’re trying to complete an online donation, and they may give up their attempt if too many obstacles are put in the way of a quick, easy transaction.

5. Fail

Don’t be afraid to test new approaches to your online donation forms to see what works best. Even slight changes can have a significant benefit to your cause and, if they don’t, then you can just swap back easily and put it down to experience!

6. Make sure you include mobile payments

Cover all the payment bases to make it work for your supporters – your payment experience should be as easy as Amazon, well almost! Make sure you have ApplePay, GooglePay and PayPal as options for one-off donations. As new methods come on board such as Open Banking, test these first before rolling out as you want to make sure the payment options work for your audience.

7. Specific appeal online asks

Don’t just stick to the standard home page donation ask. For some campaigns, especially at busy periods of the year or for emergency appeals, it is important to have a separate donation page that works for that specific campaign. If you get the gift value, messaging, images and flow right you should see an increase in supporters backing your cause.

As charity experts in payment processing, Elovate have been building effective donation pages for charity clients for over 21 years now, and we deliver the best solutions to fit not-for-profit needs.

We know this can be another headache for our charity clients, so we deliver the whole process painlessly. Contact us today for a no obligation chat about how we can build quick, easy and effective donation pages for your charity’s website and campaign appeals.

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If not, when is it the right time for your charity to start owning them?

Strange question? Are Charity Direct Debits a bit of a mystery to you? If so, you are not alone. In this blog, we’d like to demystify some aspects of Charity Direct Debit management and payment processing in the not-for-profit sector, starting with who actually owns them. And we explore how you can take back some control so that you can optimise your charity payment processing.

Many UK charities set up their Direct Debits via a ‘Facilities Managed’ (FM) account. With this type of account, the payment Bacs Bureau (which your supporters signed up to) will own the Service User Number and not the charity in question.

This FM system for supporter Direct Debit processing is a quick, effective way for some charities to access the power of Direct Debits for their fundraising, memberships, and lotteries. It has also helped many smaller and medium-sized charities offer a Direct Debit facility when they would otherwise not have been approved by their bank to do so.

However, with FM accounts, the lack of ownership of your own SUN does have several drawbacks! Read on to find out more.

How do I know if I have a FM account?

There are 2 different types of FM accounts: firstly, where the Direct Debit is set up using the commercial Payment Service Provider’s name; the other is where the FM-accredited Bacs Bureau will create a Direct Debit Service User Number (SUN) unique to you.

In both cases, your charity does not own the SUN, and money from your supporters gets deposited directly into the Bacs bureau bank account and then paid out to your charity – sometimes with the Direct Debit bureau’s fees deducted.

So, when is the right time to review this?

This will depend on a number of factors, and there is no ‘one size fits all’. The first thing you might want to consider is how important Direct Debits are to your charity as a payment processing method, also how many Direct Debits you process each month.

If the volume is over 200 per month, we suspect it might be worthwhile to have an initial chat with your Bank Manager to see if they would consider allowing your charity to take ownership of its own Service User Number.

Just making this initial enquiry will not impact your current DDs and would at least give you an indication of whether your charity could own its own SUN, with the advantages outlined below.

Why should my charity own its own SUN?

• Because your charity would own it fully! In practice, this means that you can use any Bacs Approved Bureau or even process in-house. This gives you so much more control and choice.
• Flexibility – you can easily add collection dates, change Direct Debit guarantee days, and decide what value limits to set for your supporters’ Direct Debits. By contrast, some FM providers place limits on how much you can process.
• Brand control and brand recognition– your supporters will see your charity’s name and your name only, when signing up. They’ll also see your name again on their Bank statements. This repeated brand exposure reinforces brand recognition and recall, important given that supporters who donate via third-party giving platforms can find it hard to recall the charity’s name because the platform’s name and not the charity’s can be the most dominant and memorable feature.
• Money – as soon as Direct Debits are taken, they go into your designated charity bank account. No delays – money deposited immediately.
• Fees – You can negotiate fees with your bank. Fees for Bacs Bureaux to process and manage tend to be reduced when a charity owns its own SUN, this however may depend on the services required so check with your provider.

We think we need our own Direct Debit SUN but it seems complex and time-consuming. Help!?

The upsides of owning your own SUN are clear from the five points above, but it is true that some time and effort will be required initially to navigate the process and set it all up.

If your charity needs some help with setting up its Direct Debits, we can help you make a start

If you’d like to discuss your current setup and understand what options might be available to you, but you don’t know where to start, we can help. Contact us for an initial no-obligation chat. There is no hard sell – just plain and simple advice from non-salespeople who have helped lots of charities navigate this area over the past 20 years! We would love to help you get started and we promise to speak in plain English.

Also, discover more about our Direct Debit management service.

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With the cost of acquiring new donors becoming increasingly more expensive, the importance of retaining existing supporters has never been more important to a charity’s financial sustainability.

Charities in the UK spend a considerable part of their budgets in search of supporters to give ad-hoc donations, yet many fail to treat these individuals or groups as long-term partners who share the same passion for the cause as themselves.

Does your charity take the time to say “Thank You” to your customers and supporters?

Research continues to demonstrate that within the charity sector not being thanked is overwhelmingly cited as the most common reason people give for not making further donations to an organisation.

In research published by the fundraising consultancy, John Grain Associates they found that from over 100 charities surveyed that:

• One in ten charities did not thank their new donors who gave a first gift of less than £10
• Almost one in five charities who did not thank new donors giving less than £5
• and that, over half of existing supporters giving online, only received a bounce-back email acknowledgement.

However, over 25% of charities in the survey tried ‘always or often’ to send handwritten thank you messages to acknowledge gifts, but for those who aren’t doing this or don’t know where to begin we’ve pulled together a few thoughts:

1. Assess your reporting back processes

• Ask not just how do you currently thank your donors but, how long does it take for them to receive that acknowledgement.
• Additionally, do you let them know how their generous gift has made a difference?

2. Review what you’ve written

• Be objective and consider when reading what you’ve written and how it makes you feel? Is it warm, personal and relevant? If not, rewrite it.
• Fundraising is an emotional business – always has been, always will be!

3. Set some guidelines

• Set guides that work best for your charity, such as acknowledgements to be received within 48 hours or gifts of a certain amount singled out for a telephone call.
• Review and understand your donors, work out what works best for them (and you).

4. Demonstrate impact

• Be informative, donors like to know that their money has made a difference, so build some impact reporting into your plan of action.
• Project reports will keep donors engaged in campaigns and with your organisation.

5. Make a statement

• For large donations, you may want to think about recognising these contributions publicly, if appropriate, perhaps a plaque on the wall or the naming of a building?
• Consider the donor do they want the big acclaim? If so, go to town!

What can Elovate do to help?

Elovate provide the most complete donation processing solution in the market today, supplying everything from initial strategy through to payment processing and of course thanking supporters for their donation.

We help our third sector clients get the most from their fundraising by providing leading donation processing services. Elovate can handle donations received in any format and manage subsequent Gift Aid quickly and efficiently.

Operating from a single York-based site our resilient, mission-critical contact centre environment, is open seven-days-a-week and enforced with leading business continuity and compliance solutions to ensuring zero downtime protecting both our clients and their supporters.

Our digital print mailroom is an on-demand solution that allows for full customisation of each individual thank you piece. Supporting data brought in from any source and build on the back of vast experience in complex short-run & personalised digital Print.

Elovate can receive your data in any format and through our significant investment in leading hardware and print on demand technology, support and optimise your direct mail campaigns and Variable Data Print requirements.

From the most basic text through to complex graphic and imagery customisation, regardless of how you want the thank you acknowledgements to look, with Elovate – everything is possible.

So, if you are looking for an end-to-end banking and thanking solution, whether your looking to thank your supporter using our contact centre of benefit from our onsite print facilities, get in touch with the team today.

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