In this Office Hours session, 4aGC founder Ronald Pruitt walked us through something a lot of 4aGoodCause clients have been asking for: an embedded pop-up donation form that keeps donors on your website, on-brand, and focused on completing their gift.
Below, you’ll find the full recording, the top takeaways, and a deeper look at when an embedded pop-up form makes sense versus when a standalone donation page is still the better call.
Small tweaks = big donations
Learn how to keep donors on your website through the entire giving experience without breaking the donation page best practices that make those pages convert well in the first place.
In this session, you’ll explore:
🤯Did you know? 4aGoodCause makes setting up custom fundraising pages and campaigns a breeze — and makes monthly recurring giving easier than ever — for you and your donors. Learn more.
4aGoodCause’s standalone donation pages work well (with a conversion rate that’s double the industry benchmark). But clients told us they wanted the giving experience to feel more like part of their website.
That led to the new embedded pop-up form. It opens as a modal on top of the page, so donors can keep giving without feeling like they have been sent somewhere else.
Ronald walked through an example of an embedded form done the wrong way: a college that dropped a third-party form into a page with main navigation, sub-navigation, sidebar, and footer links all still visible.
He had AI analyze the page and found over 209 hyperlinks that could pull a donor away mid-gift. The embedded pop-up keeps the form isolated above the page, so the donor stays focused on completing the gift.
Donation pages on 4aGoodCause convert an average of 27% of visitors into donors, compared to the industry benchmark of 11% from the M+R 2025 Benchmarks Study.
About half of campaigns on the platform convert at close to 50%. The goal with the new embedded form is to preserve those conversion rates while giving donors that on-site experience teams have been asking for.
Christina Trujillo
Executive Director at Steelworks
You build your campaign and donation page in 4aGoodCause exactly and as easily as you do today: images, headline, appeal, form fields, suggested giving levels, impact statements, thank-you message.
The pop-up pulls in that same campaign. You’re not duplicating work or maintaining two different versions.
Alongside the embedded form, 4aGoodCause is adding a button builder inside the platform.
You’ll be able to choose the:
Simply click create, copy the one-line embed code, and drop it on your site.
You can build as many buttons as you want and tie each one to a different campaign.
Ronald mentioned that impact statements at each giving level (like “$25/month covers food, monitoring, and recovery supplies) aren’t distracting.
These statements actually pull donors up the giving ladder. He pointed out they’re particularly useful for monthly giving programs where you’re promoting two or three giving tiers with specific perks or outcomes.
Anne Krume
Managing Director, Australian Wildlife Conservancy USA
This is the question Ronald spent the most time on in the session, and it’s worth slowing down on because the answer matters.
Both formats use the same underlying donation page you’ve already built in 4aGoodCause.
The difference is how the donor reaches it.
If the donor is already on your website, use the pop-up. Drop a donate button into your navigation, your homepage, your campaign landing page, or anywhere a visitor might click to give. Keep them on the site. The donation form launches as a modal, they complete the gift, they close the window, and they’re back on your site.
This is where the pop-up is designed to shine: for the visitor who’s already browsing your work and is ready to give.
Everywhere else, send donors directly to the standalone page.
If you’re sending a broadcast email asking for donations, link the button straight to the standalone page URL: not back to your homepage with a donate button. Every extra click is a chance to lose the donor. “Where do I click to give?” is a question you don’t want them asking.
Same logic for direct mail. Use a short URL, a QR code, or the text-to-donate setup in 4aGoodCause to drop the donor straight into the giving process. Make sure the copy and imagery on the landing page reinforce the appeal they just read in the mail piece or email.
If the donor is already on your website, use a button that launches the pop-up. If you’re driving them in from anywhere else (email, social, direct mail, ads), send them straight to the standalone page. One less click, one less chance to abandon the gift.
Small tweaks = big donations
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Ronald is the President and Founder of 4aGoodCause, the fundraising CRM that makes recurring, monthly giving a breeze for small nonprofits.
For over 25 years, Ronald has had the joy of doing what he loves, building online solutions that make a difference in the world. He’s helped raise millions of dollars online for small nonprofits across the country. Connect with Ronald on LinkedIn.
