Sierra Club turns one-off donors into monthly donors

Initial tests are worth over $200,000

Sierra Club’s online donations have increased by a whopping 830% since 2015. Improving their online conversions has been a major goal for the digital team.

In one initial test, Sierra Club added a “cover credit card processing fee” checkbox to their donation form.

Most donors checked the box to cover the processing fee, which added 3% to most gifts, totaling about $175,000 over the year.

In another test, Sierra Club decided to test the forms connected to their Facebook Ads since they were making significant investments in advertising on Facebook. They tested a 2-step email signup form in their ads. Just one test of a simple email capture was worth $200,000.

Turning one-time donors into monthly donors

Many nonprofits raise most of their revenue in the last month or so of the year—and Sierra Club is no exception. But Sierra Club recognized the value in monthly donors early on. Monthly donations are repeatable income and they increase the overall amount that they are raising. Sierra Club’s ability to move donors from one-time donor to monthly donor has increased year-round revenue.

In one initial experiment, they tested a form that was triggered after a user action. The first version of the form asked users for a one-time donation, the test version asked users for a monthly donation.

Top: One of several 1x forms, Bottom: Monthly form
Switching the form from the default to asking for monthly donations improved long-term backend revenue from about $200,000 to $1 million dollars in the last 2 years.

Higher donations through decreased form fields

Another experiment that had a massive impact for Sierra Club was removing distractions from their donation form. They simplified the form fields and saw a 14% increase in monthly donations and a $42k projected annual increase in monthly donation revenue.

• 14% increase in monthly donations
• 8% increase in click-through rate from step 1 to step 2
• 3% increase in click-through rate from step 3 to step 4
• $42k increase in projected annual donations

Elevating relevant content elevates click-through

Positioning can make or break click-through rates. Sierra Club used experimentation to improve click-through by moving the most relevant content to the space above content about the organization. This one move drove a 36% increase in clicks on their “Happening Now” section for web visitors and a 29% increase in monthly donations.

• 36% increase in clicks to “Happening Now”
• 29% increase in monthly donations
• 5% increase in one-time gifts
• $74k increase in projected annual donations

Getting the most value out of experimentation

Sierra Club sees the most powerful returns where they have clear, defined KPIs and customer data. For example, knowing that the average lifetime value of a digitally acquired monthly donation is $500, helps them prove value with experimentation. Not only has this proven value helped get other departments involved in experimentation, but it’s proven significant ROI to directors and board members, and they plan to continue growing their experimentation program.