Why do you need a donation website anyway?
If you’re not a bona fide charity, why bother setting up a donation website?
Well there are a ton of reasons why people and smaller organizations set up donation websites.
Here are just a few reasons why people need donation websites to raise money:
- Paying for their sick children’s uninsured medical treatments
- Paying for long term illnesses
- Raising money for dentures or implants
- Replacing stolen property
- Purchasing medical equipment
- Covering expensive uninsured medical procedures
- Covering excessive veterinary costs
- To cover unexpected medical procedures for your pet
- Raising money to pay for memorial or funeral services
- Raising money for friends who lost their spouse
- To aid people who suffered natural disasters
- To aid homeowners without flood insurance rebuild after flooding or hurricanes
- To aid friends who suffered an accident
- Raising money for sports competitions
- To attend universities of higher learning
- To raise money for overseas study
- For children’s education funds
- To raise money for your honeymoon or wedding
- To raise money for your church
- To raise money for school team undertakings
- For personal fundraising
- To start your own small business
- To raise money for clubs
- Raising money for animal habitats
- Raising money to buy personal appliances, cars, boats, etc.
- Raising money to buy a vehicle for friends or relatives
- Raising money for hardship cases
- For birthdays, party and other occasions
- To help crime victim survivors
- Raising money for travel expenses
- Raising money for creative arts endeavors
- For competitions and pageants
- For local community functions
And the list goes on.
Although some of the above reasons sound frivolous, like raising money for a honeymoon or a marriage, consider this.
Getting “hitched” is considered to be one of the most fun and exciting times in someone’s life, but when the bills come in from the photographer, Disk Jockey, caterer, rental of facilities, etc. the joyous moment can quickly erode into a nightmare.
Clearly, this is one situation where you need a donation website set up to augment the costs.
In this particular example, couples can set up a donation website to ask their guests and visitors to contribute online instead of bringing gifts.
These contributions are much more useful to a newly wed couple as a down payment for a new home, or to offset the costs of an expensive wedding or honeymoon than gifts that just sit on a shelf and collect dust.
Donations websites are perfectly legal as long as no effort is made to mimic well known charity names and/or websites that can fool potential donors into believing they are donating to other, more popular causes.
Just remember that the donations accepted on your donation website will probably be treated by the IRS as a gift and as earned income, and will probably be taxed.
Why do you need a donation website, re read the above>
Donation websites are used to accept donations from donors for a variety of reasons so unless you decide to use a free donation website, learning how to set up a donation website is something you need to master.
Donations from friends, family and close associates are commonly solicited for causes like illness, weddings, automobile accidents, loss of insurance, animal care and rescue, extended hospital stays, etc.
Regardless of the reason, learning how to set up a donation website is the first step to being able to accept online donations.
Fortunately, learning how to set up a donation website is easy.
Any donation website you decide to set up should have a large “donate now” button included in a prominent location in every web page of the site to simplify the donating process.
Other than the cost of website hosting, the domain name and any advertising associated with your site, operating costs for a donation website is minimal unless you are unable to perform routine HTML coding yourself. Then additional costs for a website designer are applicable.
The basics of setting up a donation website is the same as any other website.
First you need to choose a domain name that is SEO friendly and directly associated with the reason you are asking for donations. This is necessary so potential donors can more easily find your site and understand what your donation site is all about.
For example: If you are soliciting donations for money to pay for your sick dog’s operation whose name is Elmo. Choose a domain name like elmosoperation.com if it is available. If it is already taken, use hyphens to separate the domain name (elmos-operation.com).
Next, unless you already have one, sign up for a PayPal account so you can accept donations.
Among other features, an account with PayPal will allows you to to generate “Donate Now” buttons for your website.
Keep your donation websites simple. It’s not necessary to include a lot of fancy graphics, etc. that may cause your web pages to load slowly.
All you need to do is set up three basic HTML web pages.
- The “Home” page.
- The “About” page which should be labeled “About the Cause”
- The “Donate Now” page to accept the donations.
1 – Your Home page will have links to the other two pages and should explain to your visitors who you are and why you are asking for donations.
Keep it simple and try to keep the word count to a minimum. 350 to 450 words is more than adequate.
You can include a couple of photographs of your sick dog “Elmo” on the home page so potential donors can more easily relate to why they are donating but keep pictures to a minimum.
Set up a menu bar on the left side or on the top of your Home page with links to the rest of the pages of your donation website.
Pick a large, brightly colored “Donate Now” button and make sure it is prominently displayed on your Home page. Your “Donate Now” button is linked to the “Donate Now” page.
2 – Next create an “About” or “About the Cause” page for your donation website.
As the name implies, this page should contain the reasons why you are asking for donations.
Give your visitors a detailed explanation of the purpose for your request, how the money will be used, a little bit about your organization (if you have one) and about yourself so they understand that your cause is legitimate and just.
Unfortunately there are a ton of so called charities that keep the majority of funds raised for themselves.
Some nonprofit charities are nothing more than fronts for fund raising companies that bankroll their exorbitant “start up” costs, charge extraordinary high rates and can eventually drive legitimate charities into debt.
Your “About the Cause” page should alleviate any illegitimate concerns that a potential donor may have about the use of their donations.
3 – Lastly you need to create a “Donate Now” page for your donation website.
Reiterate and explain to the reader again why you need a donation and what will be done with the money that is donated.
Place another “Donate Now” link on this page that takes the donor directly to the PayPal site so they can finalize their donation. You can generate this link through PayPal after your account has been set up.
Once you understand how easy it is to set up a donation website, you will probably not need the services of a website designer.
Donation websites have been around since the inception of the Internet in one form or another, but are they legal?
The answer is in the word donation.
A donation is a voluntary gift that when made to qualified non-profit charitable, educational, public service, or religious organizations may be deemed tax deductible by the IRS as a contribution in the calculation of your income tax obligation.
When an individual voluntarily transfers the title or possession of any “thing” from himself to another person without any coercion or consideration, it is actually considered to be a gift.
Therefore, donation websites are legal as long as no effort is made to mimic well known charity names and/or websites that can fool potential donors into believing they are donating to these popular causes.
As long as donors are aware that you are not the charity and that they are not getting an IRS tax deduction, donation websites for a variety of causes are above board however, the fact that donation websites are legal does not mean you are free of any IRS tax obligations.
Although there are existing free donation websites such as MyEvent or Webs.com that are in the business of setting up personal donation websites for individuals who do not have the time or the ability to do it on their own; setting up a donation websites is a relatively easy accomplishment.
In addition, when it comes to spending money, especially in this current economy, many donors do not take mass donation websites seriously. We all know that trust is everything online, particularly when soliciting donations for your cause.
For this reason, free websites like those above should only be used if you plan to solicit donations from your circle of close friends and family members.
Donation websites, regardless of which type you decide on, should be professional in their design and easy to navigate if you expect to garner the trust and contributions of your web visitors.
If you run into problems finding a keyword rich domain name, you can include your home town name, your name or other specific information to the title of your donation website for SEO purposes.
Additional information on “how to make donation websites” will be posted in the near future but for now, as long as you do not plan to deceive your donors into believing that their donations are being made to anything other than what is outlined in your site, donation websites are legal.
Well there are a ton of reasons why people and smaller organizations set up donation websites.
