How to Let Your Donors Send Donation eCards

Giving your donors the ability to send a donation eCard allows them to share the opportunity to give to your cause with a personal message.
Donation eCards

Giving your donors the ability to send a donation eCard allows them to share the opportunity to give to your cause with a personal message.

eCards are quick, environmentally-friendly, and allow your donors to “shop” for greetings from the comfort of their own homes without the writer’s cramp! After a few clicks on the keyboard, a donation eCard is on its way to the recipient along with a contribution to your cause.

Follow the directions below using Tributes to allow your donors to send out eCards. You can set up a year-round form grid with as many different eCards as you want or create a form grid for every holiday. When the form grid is set up with engaging photos and content, your donors may have trouble choosing just one card to send and end up sending several!

This Valentine's Day eCard grid example contains 6 Valentine's Day Cards with different greetings. Each image is different with a related caption.

Things to Consider for Donation eCards

You can use eCards for any holiday throughout the year. eCards allow donors to donate to your cause while sending out a personal greeting to family, friends, other loved ones, and business acquaintances. The quality of the images and sentiments you provide are important to inspire your donors to send more than one card. Here are a few things to consider before getting started.

Images

The images are a crucial piece of your donation eCard setup. In fact, they are the most important piece in conjunction with the content. Your donors are choosing between cards to send based on the images on the screen, then reading what the card says.

The images you use for your eCards should adhere to the following guidelines:

  • All images should be owned by you, purchased for your use through licensing, or royalty-free stock websites such as Pexels, Unsplash or Freepik. The best images are those of your organization in action, showing what a positive impact you have on your community.
  • For non-holiday greetings, your images should represent your mission and tell your story as well as inspiring giving. This type of eCard should focus on spreading awareness of your cause.
  • Make sure your images are high resolution so that there is no degradation or pixelation in the images on your form or in the generated eCard.

Content

Make sure that the content you provide in the e-card is inspirational, fits with your mission, and includes an area for the donor to add their own greeting. It should be enticing and captivating. Once donors are captivated by the images they see, the caption included should compel them to choose the card too. Clever phrases and creative copy are key here. Don’t be afraid to search for examples online and replicate what others have done.

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Donation Receipt

In addition to the eCard that your donor sends to their chosen recipient, they will receive a donation receipt in their own email. Make good use of the receipt by including your logo, how donation funds are used and a link to send more eCards. When you include a link to send more eCards, your donors may decide to send more cards, giving more to your cause.

Steps to set up an e-card Form Grid:

For this fundraiser, use the multi-level donation option on each form, setting up only one suggested donation amount and enabling the custom amount. This way every eCard that gets sent ensures a minimum donation, with the ability for the donor to give more.

  1. Create a Give form for each eCard you want to have and enable the Tributes add-on for each.
  2. Include a different Featured Image of the eCard for each card. Place the same image in the Form Content Area.
  3. Customize the Tributes function for this form (for example):
    • Tribute Title: “Send a Mother’s Day Greeting”
    • Fieldset Title: “Send a Mother’s Day eCard with Your Donation”
    • Tribute Prepended Label: “Who is the Recipient”
  4. Set up your e-card:
    • Enable eCards in the Tribute settings of the form.
    • Change your eCard Email Subject to: “{donor_name} has sent you a Mother’s Day eCard and made a {amount} donation in your name!!”
    • Edit the text of the Card:

      Dear {notify_name},

      A Mother’s Day donation of {amount} has been made to our organization by {donor_fullname}, in your honor!

      Would you like to send a Mother’s Day greeting, too? Click here to make a donation and honor someone in your life: (add your form link here).

      {donor_message}

      Happy Mother’s Day,

      {sitename}

  5. Set up your form grid using a shortcode or the Gutenberg block.
  6. Promote your E-card Page
    • Create and schedule an email campaign.
    • Schedule social media posts.
    • Include in your newsletter.
    • Put a link on your home page.
    • Send a few eCards yourself to get the word out

Be creative in your use and promotion of your eCard form grid. Use donation eCards for different fundraisers around holidays or other big campaigns.

  • Are you building a new building? Use images of different parts of the building as your cards.
  • Use photos of your community in action (with permission, of course). Photos of animals and children always make people smile!
  • Have an event coming up? Use images that help drive people back to your site (be creative in your receipt and card to include a link to your event page).
  • Make cards for lesser-known holidays like National Ice Cream Day, Boss’ Day, or even Bad Poetry Day! Find something that matches your organization and go with it.

Show Us Your eCards

If you’ve built an e-card form grid, we want to see it! Tell us about it and show us how you’ve made it your own.

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