Recently, the BSD Tools feature Quick Donate was nominated for RootsCamp’s Most Valuable Technology. Quick Donate allows donors to store their payment information and give with just one click–no more fumbling for your credit card, no more forms to fill out. So, why does it deserve to be an MVT? In the words of the outside observer who nominated us, Quick Donate means “a better experience for repeat donors and more donations across all devices…”
“The rise of mobile email consumption–more than 30% of messages are now read on a smartphone or tablet–has fundamentally altered what it takes to run a successful fundraising campaign. Action rates from mobile browsers are 50% lower than on desktops. And SMS text-to-give programs are difficult to grow without extraordinarily urgent circumstances or expensive, long-term promotion. Blue State Digital’s Quick Donate feature–piloted by Obama for America and now available to everyone – solves this problem. Using it, supporters can contribute with a single click, via mobile email, SMS or a website. That means a better experience for repeat donors and more donations across all devices. During the 2012 campaign, more than 1.5 million users opted in to Obama for America’s program, donating more than $115 million. Tests performed by the campaign indicated that $75 million of that $115 million were additional incremental donations made because of the technology. Conversion rates via Quick Donate were four times higher than on traditional web forms and donors enrolled in it gave three times as much money as those solicited the traditional way. Best of all, the technology works for even the smallest campaign or nonprofit.”
We won’t say that this is the technology that won the election for President Obama, but it certainly played a very big part. If you think it’s worthy of some recognition, visit our nomination page at RootsCamp and quickly tweet your vote for Quick Donate. If you want to see proof of how central to the campaign this technology was, check out this video of President Obama signing up for Quick Donate.