Make the optional voluntary contribution more clear
A
Amanda
One of our donors complained that the donation to Zeffy was not optional. Turns out they did not understand that you have to change from the suggested donation percentage to be "other" and then type in "0". Could that be customized/changed? We would prefer there be a 0% option directly in the drop down menu.
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Rowan from Zeffy
Thank you all for your comments. We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback and your donors' experience. We wanted to address each concern here.
How is Zeffy working to explain the contribution model?
We understand that our model may not be familiar for most donors, that’s why we mention it twice on our forms. The first - when the donor is beginning to fill it out and the second - at the payment confirmation step. We’ve also added additional opportunities for donors to learn more about our model on our forms, in donor confirmation emails, in the donor dashboard and more.
As for the transparency and accessibility to adjust the contribution, we are working on various design options that we will be rolling out in the coming months. These type of changes affect both donors and nonprofits, therefore we need to do extensive testing to see the impact on donor experience along with the impact on our model.
It's important to us that donors understand and encourage our model, so changes moving forward will be focused on the donor experience.
How can we facilitate donor understanding?
Because we know that our model is newer and donors are curious by nature, we need your help to explain the voluntary contribution to them along with how Zeffy benefits your organization. Our model is about providing you with free technology, but it is also about collaboration. We would be extremely grateful if you encouraged your donors to contribute to Zeffy so that we can continue to provide our tools for free.
We want to be able to address each concern thoroughly and we understand that each nonprofit may have a specific situation. Please feel free to reach out to our team at [email protected].
M
Maryse from Zeffy
Merged in a post:
Misleading optional amount for zeffy donations
R
Rebekah
Please find another way to offer optional Zeffy donations that do not require the user to manually choose another amount and enter $0 to opt out. This is misleading and threatens your promotion that Zeffy is entirely free. I would like to know the amounts that have gone to Zeffy as donations from our account, in order to keep our transactions with Zeffy fully transparent.
M
Mary
this is my exact concern. Can you make "other" the default. I think they can figure out what (if any) to add. Now the default is the highest percentage. And this is over two years since many of these posts so nothing seems to be happening to change anything....
M
Maryse from Zeffy
Merged in a post:
Optional fees for the platform being clearer
S
SAMANTHA
The optional fees for the platform are very confusing for members, especially because even when you select "other" a box pops up making them think they have to enter something. I get wanting people to pay, but the sneaky forced way is just turning people off.
J
Joel
I agree with all customer comments here. First, I feel this needs to be more transparent to end users. Second the Zeffy support amount needs to start lower as default and/or show multiple options as the donation option shows instead of a drop-down.
As an example, I selected a $25 One-Time Donation at the top from "Your Donation" from my pre-setup $25 / $50 / $75 / $100 available options.
In the "Summary", it shows:
Donation $25.00
Support the 100% free Canadian platform we use! CA
Learn More $5.00 \/
Total $30.00
Many people think they are simply adding an additional donation to our organization and don't realize this is going to Zeffy. Other companies are more clear with an option stating something along the lines of "Make a donation to Zeffy to keep our billing platform free!"
In this example, Zeffy has set a default to $5 (20%) of the donation $25 Donation with options of $5.00, $6.00, $7.00 or Other (if I realize I can click on the down arrow)
If I select a $50 / $75 /$100 Payment, Zeffy has set a default to 15% of the donation with options of 15% ($11.25), $18% ($13.50), 20% ($14.95) or Other (if I realize I can click on the down arrow).
I understand that most payment gateways charge about 2.5% - 3.5%, so starting with that and adding an additional amount to help cover platform costs is okay, however again I feel it needs to be more transparent to the end user so they don't think it is a "tax" or an additional "donation" making its way to our organization.
One idea of improvement could be better messaging and clarity on the donating to zeffy line, not simply "Support the 100% free Canadian platform we use!" or allowing users to customize that messaging.
For the donation to Zeffy, have it defaulting to a lower amount, or if it is defaulted to a higher amount, show more options including $0 in a box layout like the donations instead of a dropdown.
Example:
Donate to Zeffy to cover platform costs and keep our organization fees Free!
[0%] [5%] [10%] [15%] [20%]
This could still have a default selected but make it more transparent what is set.
Our team will be challenged to use Zeffy as is because of end users not feeling it is as transparent as it should be and not realizing what additional fees they are paying.
Thanks.
A
Admin
We agree, this would be extremely helpful and would keep us using Zeffy. The majority of our donors tend to be 65 years old and over, so we try to keep our donation forms as streamlined and user-friendly as possible. We have had multiple complaints from older donors who haven't noticed that a percentage is automatically added for Zeffy unless they select otherwise. This has left a lot of our donors feeling scammed by us, and prompted them to request refunds that we have paid out of our own pocket.
We spend a lot of time explaining this feature to our donors and encouraging them to donate to Zeffy, but in the times that it is misunderstood, or not noticed by our donors, it makes us and Zeffy look bad and causes a break in trust. We understand how important it is for Zeffy to continue receiving donations so they can continue to provide their platform for free, but why can't the donation percentage start at 0 and then the donor can increase it if they want to?
M
Maryse from Zeffy
Merged in a post:
Organization Payment to remove platform donation on checkout.
T
Trevor
Have a flat rate yearly option for the organization to do the donation or a percentage of fundraising once per year to remove the support the platform on checkout.
J
Jenny
Whilst I understand the need for people to donate to keep the platform available for you to offer the service for free - in reality it would be less expensive for people to pay a Paypal fee of 2.9% rather than the high % that is auto-populated.
As you state in your video people want to do things quick, so putting lots of questions can be off-putting, lots of people don't pay attention and will whiz through the form and as most have stated are surprised at the high additional charge when they thought it was free for all.
I have just signed up, but I am now concerned how sustainable this model is - because people cannot afford to lose money, donations have dropped and I just do not think that this is transparent enough.
I realize it is a balance of offering the service for free - but if 95% of the people decide they would rather donate more to the organization and not make a donation to the platform - what happens then??
Your platform operates the same as Better World and I stopped using them for this reason, it comes across as deceptive and takes away from the good that you are trying to do.
I think if you have to have a set % then it should be inline with what people would pay if they were charged the fee's not many times more.
I appreciate what you offer, but the sustainability of the platform is a concern.
A
Anthony
This is an up-vote for making the default zeffy donation percentage lower, say 5%, or requiring acknowledgement. The default 15% for not paying attention seems predatory. Also, choosing 15% has made our members question/mistrust the use of the zeffy platform. 15% and 20% is associated with tip-flation at point of sale devices.
W
WCSFA Secretary
I just wanted to pop in to acknowledge that several weeks ago I was approached by Zeffy to review and provide feedback on some ideas they are considering to resolve this issue, and I'm fairly certain others on this thread were approached as well.
I got to see a couple of well-constructed designs, which only generated a few suggestions for improvment from me, so I have high hopes that we'll see something that solves this issue for both us - the non-profits - and their business needs sometime soon.
R
Raven
Unless this issue is fixed we will not use Zeffy next year.
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