Mobile Donation Forms
	Posted by Lacey Kruger at Feb 06, 2012 02:48 PM CST Categories: Fundraising, Nonprofit Trends, NPtech, Technology, Usability

When I say, “mobile donation” you probably think about text-to-give. I assume that because when I Googled the term*, that’s what most of the articles were about. This post, however, is not about text-to-give. It’s about a mobile-friendly donation form, which I believe is a key component to any nonprofit mobile presence. In fact, I’ll even say that if you want to keep your mobile presence small and simple, you really only need a mobile homepage and a mobile donation form.

Here are some great examples and things to keep in mind when you plan your mobile donation form:

1. Make it easy to find/click to your form. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. This is the homepage from Oceana and the whole feature graphic is clickable to the form. Make sure your donate button or promo is loud and large enough to touch.
   
   
   
   
2. Keep your form fields touchable. According to Apple, the average human fingertip measures 44px square so your form fields should be at least 44px tall. I still find it funny that Apple has suggested how large our fingers should be but I’ll take it for what it’s worth when designing a mobile form. This form on the American Cancer Society's mobile site has nice large text input fields.
   
   
   
   
3. Consider providing other options for giving. I’m totally comfortable entering my credit card number into my mobile phone but I know that not all donors might be. I like how the Humane Society has offered these alternative giving options at the bottom of the form so they’re not really prominent but they’re available if I’m looking for them. The “click to call” functionality is quite handy in this case as well.
   
   

*Funny enough, when I changed my Google to “mobile donation form”, the first result was a page on the Convio Open site where you can download some sample code to build your own mobile-friendly form. Hopefully these examples have inspired you to go there and start planning for your own!