Environment and health charities have the least ‘donation-friendly’ websites and the charity sector as a whole is failing to address the opportunity to maximise fundraising through mobile devices according to a new study from Eduserv, the not-for-profit web and IT services provider to the charity and public sector.

The study Optimising Charity Websites for Donations which is published today, found that animal charities came top when it came to having the most donation-friendly websites.

This was largely down to the fact that charities in this sector had made the greatest efforts to adapt their websites to the increasing volume of visits via mobile and tablet devices.

The widespread failure among charities to address the new challenges presented by the shift to mobile and tablet devices as the primary point of access to the internet is highlighted by the following findings:

Of the 50 charities audited, only three (6%) had created donation journeys specific to mobile devices.

Four in ten charity (42%) websites are not optimised for mobile devices in any way.

Even where a site is optimised for mobile devices, the donation screens of four in five charities (80%) then revert to desktop donation journeys which are poorly suited to mobile.

Beyond the issue of mobile fundraising, the audit revealed broader challenges for charities in improving the fundraising effectiveness of the desktop sites.

These were:

Accessibility and website speeds: the adoption of rich media, without upgrades to infrastructure to support the content, is undermining the performance of leading charity websites.

Donation experience: onerous data capture and a high number of clicks is introducing high levels of friction to the donation journey. Seven pages and 20 clicks is the worst example we found.

Options to donate: either very limited donation options or the lack of adoption of new forms of donation such as paypal or text giving.

John Simcock, charities director at Eduserv said: “Our digital-first world creates substantial opportunities for charities to reduce the cost per pound donated while increasing their fund-raising revenue.

"This study finds that while there are pockets of excellence in the way charities are approaching this opportunity, they need to work harder to keep pace with the changing consumer behaviour online.

"Charities need to urgently think about how they can adopt a more agile approach to managing and improving their websites so that they can address specific challenges like the rise of mobile internet access.”

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