Nonprofit website integrations: Top tools and best practices

Your nonprofit organization’s website is one of the most important outreach and fundraising tools you have at your disposal. Although it already serves as a hub of information for potential supporters, you can maximize your site’s potential by integrating it with other tools. Adding a variety of features can provide a more dynamic and enjoyable experience for visitors, encouraging them to take action.

To help you get started with creating nonprofit website integrations, this guide will discuss some of the best tools to integrate with your website and share some best practices to make these integrations as smooth as possible. 

Top tools to integrate with your nonprofit website

Your nonprofit’s online fundraising and marketing strategies will align most effectively if you integrate the following four software solutions with your website.

Nonprofit CRM

Most nonprofits use constituent relationship management (CRM) software to help retain supporters by creating deeper, longer-lasting relationships with them. Your CRM stores a variety of relevant information about each supporter, such as: 

• Demographic details
• Giving and engagement history with your nonprofit
• Contact information

When a new supporter donates, signs up to volunteer, registers for an event, or subscribes to your organization’s newsletter through your website, they’re typically prompted to provide their email address and sometimes their phone number. By integrating your website and CRM, you can transfer that information directly to your donor profiles with ease. 

Email marketing tools

Effective supporter communication requires a balance of personalization and automation. While supporters are more likely to respond well to personalized communications, marketing automation helps your organization plan ahead and ensure supporter follow-ups don’t fall through the cracks.

If your organization leverages an email marketing tool that includes automation features, integrate it with the forms on your website. That way, when a supporter fills out the form, they’ll automatically receive a donation or registration confirmation email. Create templates that express your gratitude to supporters for the action they took, and make sure their name can be autofilled from the online form to maintain a level of personalization.

Advocacy software

There are a variety of advocacy campaign activities that your nonprofit could route through your website, including:

• Online petitions
• Click-to-call campaigns
• Targeted messages
• Sharing educational resources about your cause

Advocacy software that aligns with your nonprofit’s website allows supporters to access all of the key digital components of your campaign in one place, which is not only convenient but also prompts them to take multiple steps to spread awareness about your cause. Additionally, your organization can view all of the data on your campaign in your advocacy platform and make changes on your website as needed.

Online payment processor

As online fundraising has grown in popularity, so has the need for secure payment processing systems. When donors give through your website’s online donation page, they want to know that your nonprofit will keep their payment information safe.

When choosing a payment processor, look for the following features:

• PCI compliance or certification, as these processors are the most secure.
• Ability to accept multiple payment methods, including bank account transfers, all major credit cards, and mobile payment services like PayPal and Apple Pay.
• Processing and maintenance fees to ensure the software stays within your organization’s budget.

If your payment processor is part of an all-in-one software solution, your donors’ payment information will also automatically transfer to your CRM, helping you develop an even more robust donor database. Additionally, your donors will be able to automatically reuse stored payment methods for future contributions.

Nonprofit website integration best practices

Your nonprofit website integrations will be most effective on a fully optimized website. As you integrate the tools above with your site, make sure to check:

• Page load speed. When pages load more quickly, visitors are more likely to stay on your site longer. Compress and resize images, host videos on external sites and embed them into your website, clean up your code structure, and test each of the tools you’ve integrated for speed to reduce page load time.
• Mobile optimization. Chances are that many of your website visitors will access your site using a smartphone or tablet rather than a computer. Ensure your website information, automated email templates, and donation form resize automatically for different screen sizes to facilitate mobile giving and engagement.
• Calls to action. Your calls to action can make a major difference in whether a visitor chooses to take an intended next step on your website. Carefully craft potential calls to action for your donation page, sign-up forms, and advocacy campaign activities. Then, ask for feedback to refine them.

For all of these website elements and integrations, conduct usability testing by having volunteers navigate through different aspects of your site and complete different tasks on both a computer and a mobile device. A/B testing is also helpful for revising aspects of your messaging as the volunteers who participate will let you know which version of an email template or call to action is most effective.

Getting started with nonprofit website integrations

Integrating your nonprofit’s different platforms can be technically complex and may seem overwhelming at first. However, if you choose the right tools and develop a strategy for implementing the integrations on your website, you’ll be able to create a unified online marketing and fundraising system to streamline your operations.