Introduction
Showit and Raisely are two powerful platforms that help nonprofits and mission-driven organizations build beautiful, functional websites and collect online donations.
Showit is a user-friendly website builder made specifically for telling stories online. It provides modern designs, drag and drop editing, and robust features to create a custom site without code.
Raisely is a top fundraising software that makes it easy to accept one-time and recurring donations. It seamlessly integrates with Showit websites for a unified look and donor experience.
Together, Showit and Raisely provide the essential tools to build your organization’s website and start collecting online donations. Showit offers the frontend website platform while Raisely handles the donations backend.
Key features include:
- Professionally designed website templates for nonprofits and organizations
- Intuitive drag and drop editor in Showit to customize your site
- Mobile responsive designs and themes
- Integrated online donation forms and payment processing with Raisely
- Recurring giving options for monthly or annual donors
- Customizable donation pages and flows
- Donor management tools and email marketing
- Reporting and analytics on website traffic and donations
This powerful combination enables organizations to create beautiful, feature-rich websites that also generate online fundraising revenue.
Benefits of Using Showit for Your Website
Showit offers an easy to use drag and drop website builder that makes creating an attractive, professional website simple, even for those without coding skills. With Showit, you can choose from a wide variety of templates and then customize the design, layout, colors, fonts, and images to match your brand.
The intuitive editor allows you to drag and drop sections like text, images, buttons, and more onto your pages. You can then edit and style these elements right within Showit without needing to touch any code. This simplifies the website building process significantly compared to traditional HTML and CSS coding.
Showit also handles hosting your site and optimizing it for speed and performance. Since it’s a hosted platform, you don’t need to worry about managing servers or technical upkeep. Showit takes care of that for you, allowing you to focus on creating great content and growing your audience.
With our mobile-responsive website templates designed in Showit, you can ensure your website looks fantastic on all devices. The website templates created with Showit have been designed to adapt for optimal viewing on desktop, tablets, and mobile phones.
Overall, Showit’s user-friendly drag and drop builder makes it a great choice for non-technical users looking to create a polished, professional website quickly and easily. The intuitive editor and variety of customizable templates provide flexibility without complexity.
Integrating Raisely Donations into Your Showit Site
Integrating Raisely donations into your Showit site is straightforward. Here are the steps to connect the two platforms:
- Sign up for a Raisely account if you don’t already have one. Raisely offers a free plan to get started.
- Create a donation form in Raisely. You can customize the look and feel, set donation goals, and level of giving amounts (see more details below).
- In Showit, create a new page for your donations, or use the donation page provided in our Humankind website templates. Add any text, images or videos to explain more about your cause.
- On the web page, add the Raisely embed code provided in your Raisely account. This seamlessly integrates the donation form you designed.
- Customize the styling of the embedded form to match your Showit site using CSS, or chat with our team about customizations to do so (see details below).
- Publish your page in Showit. Test that the donation form works.
- Make any tweaks to the page or Raisely form. Add a link to the donations page in your Showit website navigation (already included in our Humankind website templates).
And that’s it! With just a few steps, you can have a custom donation form integrated into your Showit site. Raisely handles collecting and processing the donations. You can then access donor information and analytics within your Raisely account.
Raisely Donation Form Customization
Raisely allows you to fully customize the look and feel of your donation forms to match your organization’s brand. You can customize:
- Colors and fonts – Choose your organization’s colors and fonts for the header, text, buttons, etc to seamlessly match your website.
- Form fields – Select which fields you want to include on your donation form such as name, email, address, etc. You can also make fields required or optional.
- Donation amounts – Specify preset donation amounts you want to include as buttons, or allow donors to enter a custom amount. You can include or exclude a monthly recurring donation option.
- Mobile-responsiveness – Ensure your form looks great on mobile devices with Raisely’s built-in responsive design.
- Embed code – Raisely provides an embed code of your designed donation form in your account that you can then use to add to any website page.
Overall, Raisely makes it easy to create an on-brand, polished donation experience for your donors. This customization ensures your donation forms fit seamlessly into your existing website.
Donation Goals & Thermometers
Showit’s integration with Raisely makes it easy to set up donation goals and thermometers to track your fundraising progress, as well.
You can create multiple donation campaigns, each with their own goals. For example, you may have an “Annual Fund” campaign with a $50,000 goal, and a “Building Expansion” campaign with a $250,000 goal.
To set a goal, go to the Raisely dashboard and navigate to “Campaigns”. Click on the campaign you want to edit. Under Settings, you’ll see “Goal”. Enter the monetary goal amount you want to achieve.
Once you’ve set a goal, you can add a thermometer widget to your Showit site to display your progress. Go to the Widgets tab in Raisely and look for the Donation Thermometer widget.
The thermometer will automatically update and show what percentage of your goal has been reached as donations come in. You can customize the color scheme, size, and other elements of the thermometer.
Thermometers provide a visual representation that encourages donors to give. People like to see progress bars filling up and may be motivated to give the campaign that final push if it’s close to the goal amount.
Strategically setting goals and displaying thermometers on your website can significantly boost the success of your fundraising campaigns. The integration between Showit and Raisely makes the process seamless.
One-Time vs Recurring Donations
When setting up donations on your website, you have the option for donors to make one-time or recurring donations. Each has its own advantages and considerations.
One-Time Donations
- Allow donors to quickly and easily contribute any amount they choose. This provides maximum flexibility.
- Are best for fundraising campaigns centered around specific projects or needs.
- Don’t provide ongoing revenue. You’ll need to continually ask for new one-time donations.
- Are easier to setup. Donors simply choose an amount without any ongoing commitment.
Recurring Donations
- Provide predictable, reliable income over time. This helps budgeting and planning.
- Are great for nonprofits seeking monthly donors. These build long-term relationships.
- Allow donors to set up automatic monthly or annual gifts. Less work for them.
- Require more setup on the admin side. Need confirmation emails and recurring billing.
- Can be canceled by donors at any time. Need to continually provide value.
- Are harder to get started but provide ongoing funds if maintained.
Both one-time and recurring donation options have their place. Offering both allows donors to contribute however works best for them. The key is providing an easy giving experience tailored to your nonprofit’s funding needs.
Donation Thank You & Receipt Pages
Once a donor completes their donation on your site, you can choose to have them be taken to a thank you page. This is a great opportunity to show your gratitude and make the donor feel appreciated.
With Raisely and Showit, you can customize the look and feel of your thank you pages. You can add your organization’s branding, colors, and messaging. Some best practices for thank you pages include:
- Thanking the donor by name
- Confirming the donation amount
- Sharing what impact their donation will make
- Adding photos, videos, or quotes to make it more personal
- Linking to social media to encourage sharing
You can also enable donation receipts. These contain details like the donor’s name, donation amount, and date for their records. Receipts can be automatically emailed and available for download on the thank you page.
When customizing your pages, ensure your thank you message sounds authentic. Use the opportunity to connect with donors and get them excited about supporting your mission again.
Donor Management and Communication
Managing your donor relationships is a key part of running an effective fundraising campaign on your website. With Raisely, you can view and export your entire donor database, including contact information, donation history, and any custom donor profile fields you have created. Segment your donors by criteria like donation amount, frequency, and more to target communications.
Send email newsletters to donors directly through Raisely. Create beautiful branded templates or use their pre-designed options. Emails can be sent to your entire list or segmented groups based on donor attributes and activity.
Set up automatic welcome and thank you email workflows to go out when a donor makes their first gift or gives again. Personalize email content with donor merge fields like name, donation amount, and campaign name.
Track email analytics to see open rates, clicks, and unsubscribes. Raisely makes it easy to comply with email regulations and manage subscriber preferences.
Beyond email, you can also connect with donors through their donor portal. Donors can log in to view their giving history, update contact information, and manage their subscription preferences.
Overall, Raisely’s donor management tools help you steward relationships long after the initial donation. Thoughtful donor communication and segmentation will lead to higher engagement and retention over time.
Reporting and Analytics
With Raisely integrated into your Showit website, you have access to powerful analytics and reporting to track your donation progress.
The Raisely dashboard provides real-time data on:
- Total dollars raised
- Number of donations received
- Average gift amount
- Recurring vs one-time gifts
- Top referral sources
You can easily view donation trends over time, allowing you to track the impact of marketing campaigns, appeals, and events. Segment donors by attributes like location, gift amount, and frequency.
Build custom reports to analyze campaign performance across channels. See which social posts, emails, and pages are driving the most conversions.
Raisely also tracks key engagement metrics beyond donations:
- Email open and clickthrough rates
- Page views
- Form submissions
- Social shares
With this data, you can identify top-performing content to create more of, and continuously optimize your fundraising program.
Integrated with Showit’s built-in analytics, you have a complete view of your website and donation metrics in one place. This powerful reporting enables data-driven decisions to maximize donations.
Conclusion
Showit and Raisely are powerful tools for creating an engaging website with integrated donation capabilities. By using Showit’s drag-and-drop editor and templates, you can quickly build a professional-looking site to showcase your organization’s mission and needs. Embedding Raisely then provides a seamless donation experience right within your site.
Raisely offers customizable donation forms, goal tracking, and donor management features to make fundraising simple. Donors can easily make one-time or recurring gifts, receive instant receipts, and opt-in to further communications. As an admin, you gain access to donation reports and metrics to optimize your fundraising strategy over time.
In summary, combining Showit and Raisely eliminates the need for complex coding and provides everything you need to create an informative, user-friendly site that converts visitors to donors. With some planning and customization, your website can become a central hub for engaging your supporters and furthering your cause. Focus on creating quality content, telling your story, and making your giving experience frictionless.