5 great charity gift sites to learn from
Charities and non-profits can increase donation revenue with alternative gifts. Here are some great site examples to refer to.
Alternative charity gifts are donations to the charity that represent something specific, such as six egg-laying hens, or a week of school meals.
Running a site that offers ethical gifts like these is a great way for non-profits to increase their donations revenue. Our clients, Concern Worldwide, have even managed to increase their alternative gifts sales during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We've picked out five examples of successful alternative gifts sites to show you:
Oxfam charity gifts
Oxfam card gifts homepage
Great homepage
An alternative gifts site needs to look great and provide an excellent user experience (UX).
This means visually drawing your site visitors in and making it easy for them to see the gifts available and how to buy.
The homepage of a gift site is the first thing that most people will see and Oxfam have made theirs engaging and easy to navigate.
Oxfam card gifts checkout
Easy payment processing
Oxfam keep their checkout short and offer multiple payment options.
Concern Worldwide gift shop
Concern gifts homepage
Range of gifts and prices
Concern Worldwide's gift site offers a range of gifts with different price points. This helps gift-buyers to find an item that is within their budget. It also provides an indicator of useful donation amounts, and can nudge up the intended gift spend above what a person might have spent as an ordinary donation.
Impact stories
Concern shows site visitors the difference that their gift purchase will make. This builds trust and creates an emotional connection for the gift-giver.
They use images of people and tell the story of an individual who has benefited from the specific gift the visitor is looking for.
Concern gift detail page
Optional donations
The Concern gifts check-out flow includes the option to add an additional donation to any gift purchase. This helps increase their revenue beyond the value of the gift purchased.
UNICEF inspired gifts
UNICEF inspired gifts homepage
Clear explanations
UNICEF's inpired gifts homepage includes a panel that shows site visitors how the process works.
Macmillan card store
Homepage - Macmillan gifts that change lives
Occasion cards
Offering different e-cards or physical cards based on special occasions helps make an alternative gift feel more meaningful to the recipient and more appropriate to the gift giver.
Macmillan's 'gifts that change lives' has a range of cards that feature Macmillan beneficiaries as well as animals, flowers and more.
Send A Cow's online shop
Send A Cow gift shop
Use good photography of people on each gift listing, especially cute kids and animals.
Buyers like to see positive images that show the benefit of their gift and it increases engagement and sales.
Send A Cow gifts detail page
For each gift, Send A Cow showcases the impact of each item, offers purchase options including physical card, e-card, and donation, and shares a quote from one of the gift beneficiaries.
Get our free guide to alternative gift sites
We've created a 35+ page guide to what makes a great alternative gift site. It's free to download, so if you'd like to repeat the success of Concern, get your copy now.