Mobile Donation Flows Decide Conversion
tessera Perspective
Online giving in the US has risen steadily in recent years, from roughly 8% of charitable revenue in 2022 to more than 12% in 2023. A large share of that traffic now arrives through mobile devices. Yet gifts initiated on phones still underperform in size and completion when compared with those made on desktops. The difference is not enthusiasm but execution. A slow page, an unnecessary field or an absent payment method is often enough to turn intent into abandonment.
Recognize the scale of loss
Almost half of online donations now begin on a mobile device, but a smaller share are completed and those that succeed are smaller in value, with the average phone-based gift less than half the size of its desktop equivalent. Surveys suggest that more than half of donors will quit if their preferred payment method is missing. What looks like a trivial design decision can therefore become a structural drain on revenue.
Understand how friction accumulates
The points of failure are rarely dramatic. Forms still demand billing details that the processor does not need. Campaigns intended to recruit sustainers default to one-off contributions. Pages assembled on office broadband perform poorly on a commuter’s connection. Each quirk may seem minor; together they explain why mobile giving continues to lag.
Match donor habits, not institutional habits
Digital wallets provide the most visible example of how friction can be removed. During GivingTuesday 2023 some universities reported that more than 40% of their mobile donations were made through Apple Pay or Google Pay. The effect was not the product of clever marketing but the removal of keystrokes. The transaction became familiar and therefore swift. Donors increasingly expect such options. Wallets have now overtaken cheques as a preferred method across age groups, a symbolic if unsurprising milestone.
Fix the accountability gap
One reason such problems persist is the way responsibilities are divided. Marketing decides what a page looks like. IT manages the system. Finance reconciles the flows. No one is accountable for the performance of the donor journey itself. In commercial settings, where every drop in conversion is noticed, such issues are resolved quickly. In the voluntary sector they often persist until the next redesign, which may be years away.
Treat conversion as infrastructure
The lesson is straightforward. Donation flows are not a matter of style; they are part of the organisation’s infrastructure. Reliability depends on their design and maintenance. Simplifying fields, presenting recurring options clearly, enabling the payment methods donors already use and testing on real mobile networks are not aesthetic choices but operational necessities. Each change may appear modest in isolation, yet collectively they determine whether a supporter’s intent is carried through to completion.
Sources: Blackbaud Institute; Bloomerang Generational Giving Report; Discover Global Network; NonProfit PRO; M+R Benchmarks; BWF analysis of GiveCampus data.