Why Donation Tiers Work & How to Design Yours Strategically

Each time someone lands on your donation site, it’s an opportunity for your mission to come to life. One easy way to motivate potential donors to complete their online gifts is to make the process feel simple, transparent, and impactful.

Donation tiers do just that! Offering preset donation levels like $25, $50, and $100 guides supporters to make informed decisions and often inspires them to give a little more than they might’ve originally planned. This small change can lead to real results for your mission.

Let’s dive into how donation tiers work, how to choose the amounts that make sense for your audience, and why this strategy can help you run more effective fundraisers and boost revenue.

What Are Donation Tiers?

Donation tiers, also called suggested giving amounts or levels, are predetermined gift amounts that appear as options on your donation form. With online fundraising tools, setting up and customizing these giving levels is effortless. In just a few clicks, your organization can lead your supporters toward quick, confident decisions.

Tiers simplify the donation process by taking away guesswork and reducing donors’ hesitation. Instead of asking people to come up with donation amounts on their own, these tiers offer thoughtful suggestions that feel both achievable and impactful. Compared to open-ended forms without any listed amounts, structured donation tiers create a clearer, smoother path to giving. 

For more impact, you can even add labels like “Supporter” or “Champion” to each dollar amount to increase their appeal. Take your efforts even further by choosing a fundraising software provider that allows you to add impact statements alongside each suggested donation amount. For example, “$50 feeds a family for a week.” That simple line gives powerful context and makes donors feel their contribution will make an immediate difference.

Why Suggested Giving Amounts Work

Donation tiers are as great as they sound because they inspire larger gifts and reduce friction in the giving process. Here are just a few reasons why suggested giving amounts can have such a big impact: 

• Social proof: Donation tiers show supporters how much others like them are giving, which boosts their confidence in their decision and proves that their gift will make a difference. For instance, adding the line, “Most donors give $50!” can encourage a supporter to match that level. 
• Tangible impact: Build trust from the very beginning with transparency about how donors’ gifts may be used. When someone sees “$25 plants three trees,” they can rest assured that their gift is directly tied to mission-relevant outcomes.
• Less friction: When you simplify the decision-making process, donors will be more likely to follow through. The fewer steps and choices, the higher your form completion rates.
• More consistency: Donation tiers can help encourage recurring giving, too. A donor who selects “$40 per month” becomes a reliable revenue stream your nonprofit can plan around. 

Bottom line: Strategic donation levels help donors feel more confident and generous in their giving. Donation tiers are effective across a variety of fundraising types, including capital campaigns, peer-to-peer fundraisers, and even auctions.

How to Design Donation Tiers That Convert

Once you have a fundraising platform that supports donation tiers in place, use the following strategies to create tiers that resonate with your audience and support your organization’s fundraising goals.

1. Start with Your Donor Data

The best place to start when determining your donation amounts is your donor data! Look at common gift sizes in your CRM and use those benchmarks to build your tiers.

A good starting point is your average or median donation amount. Make that your lowest tier, then choose three to five giving levels that gradually increase. For example, if your average donation is around $40, then you might choose $40, $75, and $100. Consider trying out different levels and adjusting to see which ones perform best with your community. 

2. Pair Each Tier with Impact Statements

Showcasing the difference donors make with each gift can encourage larger donations. Pair your donation tiers with clear impact statements to help people understand the real, tangible results their financial support can create. 

For example, say that you’re an environmental nonprofit with an average donation of $40. Your donation tiers and impact statements may look like this: 

• $40 helps plant three trees. 
• $50 supports one community clean-up event.
• $100 funds an educational community workshop.

At the same time, you might also name your donation tiers to better engage donors and give them a sense of pride. For example, this humane society leveraged OneCause peer-to-peer fundraising software to enhance their donation tiers with images, titles, and short descriptions:

Including a name with each of your impact statements provides a clear sense of a donor’s role, while adding images that portray your descriptions makes them even more appealing to supporters.

3. Keep It Clean, Straightforward, and Optional 

Donation tiers are powerful, but having too many options can overwhelm donors. To keep things streamlined, limit your suggested giving amounts to three to five levels, and always include the option for donors to enter a custom giving amount. 

Here are a few quick tips to improve the donation page experience: 

• Optimize the layout for mobile devices. 
• Place suggested giving amounts toward the top of your donation form. 
• Keep the number of form fields to a minimum. 
• Offer flexible payment options to streamline the giving process. 
• Label your custom giving field as “Other” or “Custom” (like in the example below) to make it more approachable.

After updating your donation page, monitor key engagement metrics to analyze and maximize your efforts. Look at form completion rates, bounce rates, and time spent on the page to understand how donors respond and make improvements as needed. As your donor base grows and campaigns evolve, revisit your tiers often. A level that resonated last year might need adjusting to reflect inflation, new program costs, or changing donor behavior.

Putting Your Donation Tiers to Work 

Adding donation tiers to your giving page will go a long way toward raising more for your cause. It starts with a simple suggestion, but when paired with clear impact statements, strong visuals, and ongoing testing, these suggested amounts can inspire larger gifts and long-term support.

Whether you’re refreshing your donation page or choosing giving levels for an upcoming auction, donation tiers can help your organization unlock the highest amount of generosity to push your mission forward.