How to Create A Donation/Sponsorship Request Form Organizations Will Actually Submit

Download the Donation/Sponsorship Request Form Checklist

 

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Like most banks and credit unions, you’re fortunate enough to offer donations and sponsorships to select community organizations and nonprofits that submit a request. (Or maybe you’d like to, and that’s what brings you to this article.) You’ve created nifty donation and sponsorship request forms (probably a fillable PDF), and all organizations have to do is find and submit it so you can give them some moolah. 

 

It’s time to sit back and watch the donation requests roll in.

 

But you’re waiting…and waiting…and waiting…

 

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

 

Why aren’t organizations submitting donation or sponsorship requests? You get enough unsolicited emails to know they need the money. And now you’re offering it to them, no strings attached. All they have to do is search your website for the donation request form, enter 17 passwords, download the form, fill it out, upload it, convert it to a file type they’ve never heard of, and submit it to your department (after answering the riddle, of course). Easy peasy! 

 

So why aren’t the requests rolling in? Don’t they want free dough?

 

Okay, okay, this probably isn’t your regular process. I may have exaggerated just a little bit.

 

But the question still stands: Why aren’t organizations submitting your donation or sponsorship request forms? Instead, you’re getting requests by email, text, and carrier pigeon. The information you need isn’t included, and you have to follow up 12 times just to complete the application. It’s a hassle. 

 

So what can you do?

 

There are lots of ways to encourage organizations to submit your donation/sponsorship request form. One of the simplest ways is making your submission form easy to find and painless to submit. The easier your form is to submit, the more requests you’re likely to see.

 

Here are some principles for creating a submission form organizations will actually submit. 

 

Download the Donation/Sponsorship Request Form Checklist

 

Download

 

Make sure organizations know about it

 

First of all, make sure organizations know about your submission form. You can’t expect someone to submit a form they don’t know about, so it all starts here. 

 

You’ll want to blast this form everywhere you can. Send a mass email to past requesters updating them on your new process, post on social media, put the form link in your email signature. Bottom line, get the word out.

 

And make sure to enforce your process, too. 

 

If someone emails their submission, politely send them the link to your form and ask them to fill it out there. Pretty soon, they’ll know how to properly request a donation, and you can stop transferring emailed info over to the form yourself. When a carrier pigeon arrives, jot a quick note directing the requester to your form and send the pigeon back. More work for the pigeon, less for you. 

 

This may be a bit tiresome in the beginning, especially if you’re starting a new process that nobody knows about yet. But as you make your process clear and continue to remind people, they’ll get the hang of it and will start submitting the form first. Your email inbox will be much cleaner. And no more messy carrier pigeons. 

 

 

Set proper expectations

 

From the very beginning, you should set proper expectations for potential submitters. What types of organizations does your institution donate to? How long will it take for you to review and respond? How will they be contacted?

 

For example, you might include this paragraph at the top of your form: “[Bank name] only donates to nonprofit organizations. Please complete the below form [x] weeks prior to the date the funds are needed. If the donation is approved, you will be contacted by email no more than [x] weeks from the time your request was submitted.” This covers all your bases and makes sure requesters aren’t expecting an immediate response or wondering why you’re taking your sweet time. 

 

Download the Donation/Sponsorship Request Form Checklist

 

Download

 

Keep it simple

 

Community organizations and nonprofits may be asking for a favor, but that doesn’t mean they want to spend hours filling out forms.

 

Just like you, they’re busy, and they want to get this request over with as quickly as possible. The more complicated your donation or sponsorship request form is, the less likely it is to be completed. 

 

Keeping your form simple means don’t ask a billion questions you don’t need the answers to! Collect everything you need to complete their request, but don’t overwhelm them with questions. That’s just asking for an incomplete form.

 

Here are some common questions used by Kadince customers:

 

• Tax ID/EIN

• Organization Name

• Organization Contact

• Donation Amount

• Date Needed By

• Description

• Payable To

• Payment Instructions

• Donation Impact

• What percent of beneficiaries are low/moderate income?

• Upload supporting documents as attachments

 

A donation or sponsorship request form should take 10 minutes max to complete. No unnecessary info, and no repetitive questions. Start with the most important question first and work your way down from there. Form submitters will thank you.

 

Make it intuitive

 

If you’re like many financial institutions and use a fillable PDF to collect donation/sponsorship requests, then your forms are not intuitive (sorry to break it to you). And if you collect donation requests by email, then they are even less so. 

 

Intuitive forms help take the guesswork out of submitting a donation or sponsorship request. And if you use a tracking system that allows form logic, then you’re at the top of the game. Form logic means that requesters can fill out a question or two and, depending on their answers, be taken to different questions that apply to their situation. 

 

For example, if you only donate to nonprofit organizations, you could start with a question about their organization type. If they choose “nonprofit,” then they’re taken to the rest of the application. If they choose “for-profit,” then they’re informed that they don’t qualify and wished a happy life. Now they won’t waste time applying, and you won’t waste time reviewing their application. 

 

This makes sure you get the right answers the first time around and don’t have to follow up for clarifying info. If your tracking system doesn’t have form logic, take a look at Kadince. Kadince lets you build multi-page forms that do whatever you tell them to. Bring on the form logic! 

 

Another Kadince perk is that if an organization you’ve already donated to is requesting more funds, the system can auto-fill that organization’s info based on their tax ID or name. This cuts down the time it takes for that organization to fill out the form and even prevents mistakes. All that organization’s giving history is stored inside the system, and you can access it at any time to see when, why, and how much you’ve donated in the past. Now that’s taking intuitive forms to another level!

 

Make it easy to find and submit

 

Have you ever been asked to submit a form and had to jump through a bunch of hoops to do so? You click one link and that takes you to another. And then you have to log in to another system, where you have to find the form and finally open it. Only to be met with a bunch of questions you don’t even know the answers to. You’re busy! You don’t have time for this!

 

This might be how your community organizations feel if the donation or sponsorship request form is hard to access or submit. 

 

The easier this form is to find and complete, the less time it will take to do so and the happier requesters will be. Plus, the more submissions you’ll see. 

 

But how to make your form easy to submit? This starts with how organizations access the form. Don’t hide it beneath secret trap doors that are impossible to find. You don’t want organizations stumbling across your forms randomly or searching your site for hours. 

 

 

 

 

Instead, make your form easy to find and open. Ideally, that means having one link that takes them directly to the form with no strings attached. Many banks and credit unions keep this link on their community involvement webpage. This way, organizations can find and open it online. 

 

And once your form is easy to access, make it easy to submit. There shouldn’t be a billion questions, the “submit” button should be obvious, and they should receive confirmation that the form went through. No backbreaking labor required. 

 

Making your donation/sponsorship request form easy to find and submit doesn’t have to be difficult. Just think about where you’d naturally go to find a donation request form, and put it there. 

 

Download the Donation/Sponsorship Request Form Checklist

 

Download

 

Follow up with organizations

 

While this point won’t necessarily affect whether or not an organization completes your donation or sponsorship request form, it’ll help you build that relationship and set the organization up for success. 

 

Always make sure to follow up with a requesting organization, whether or not they receive funding. And make sure to follow up in the timeline you specified when they began their request (you are setting proper expectations, right?). 

 

If an organization does receive funding, then this step is obvious. You need to work directly with them to make the donation. If an organization doesn’t receive funding, it’s still a nice courtesy to follow up, maybe provide some background on why they didn’t qualify, and encourage them to submit future requests. This will help unfunded organizations see that you do care and aren’t just denying their request for fun. Maintaining a solid relationship is an important part of reviewing, denying, and accepting donation requests. We wouldn’t want any disgruntled nonprofits running around, now would we?

 

 

 

Use Kadince

 

Whatever system you use to collect donation and sponsorship requests shouldn’t only be easy for organizations to access and submit. It should also be easy for you to manage. 

 

Reviewing, approving, and denying donation/sponsorship requests is no picnic, and having a system that makes this process easy will save you both time and sanity. 

 

Tracking donation requests through email, spreadsheets, or PDFs doesn’t cut it. “But I love my spreadsheets!” you might say. “The hundreds of tabs I have are amazing. I can find everything I need right away and I never get lost. Spreadsheets are my friends!” 

 

(Oh please, I know you’ll never say that.)

 

Spreadsheets suck. And so does tracking donation requests through email or working with PDFs. Unfortunately, hundreds of financial institutions are stuck in this cycle. Fortunately, there’s a much better way…

 

Kadince software makes it easy to create donation and sponsorship request forms, collect submissions, manage organizations, and more. 

 

These Kadince features will make your request process so much easier:

 

• Custom fields so you get the exact data you need the first time around.

• Smart logic that takes requesters to the correct questions based on previous answers.

• Workflows so nothing falls through the cracks and you never have to remind Becky to review that new request again.

• Giving history that lets you see exactly when, why, and how much you’ve donated to any organization in the past. This makes giving decisions easy and keeps all your data in one place.

 

With Kadince, you can create forms that are easy to access and submit, collect the data you actually need, and keep organizations happy. Not to mention spend a ton of money donating to your community.  

 

Schedule a demo to learn more. Or, you know, just keep waiting for those donation and sponsorship requests to roll in…and waiting…and waiting… 

 

Schedule Demo

 

 

Check out the other articles in this series

 

• How to Create A Volunteer Form Employees Will Actually Complete
• How to Plan An Event Employees Will Be Excited to Attend
• How to Make the Scholarship Application Process Easy for Students and Your Institution

 

None of Kadince, Inc., its affiliates, or its respective employees, directors, officers, and agents (collectively, “Kadince”) are responsible or liable for any content or information incorporated herein. Read full disclosure.