Donor Portal promotion in donor emails

What we tested

The Donor Portal helps supporters manage their giving, update payment information, make additional donations, and engage more deeply with your organization. That's why it's important to help more donors discover and use it.

We wanted to understand whether making the Donor Portal more visible in the emails supporters already receive could encourage more donors to engage with it.

To test this, we added a prominent Donor Portal promotion block to transactional and receipt emails. Supporters in the control group continued to see the existing email design, while supporters in the test group saw a more visible call-to-action linking to the Donor Portal.

The goal was simple: bring more supporters into the Donor Portal without negatively affecting donor behavior or recurring revenue.

Hypothesis

If we make the Donor Portal link more prominent in donor emails, conversion to Donor Portal login will increase by more than 2.5%, while recurring plan cancellations will increase by no more than 4.5%, and overall revenue will remain stable. We believe this will happen because highlighting the value of the Donor Portal at a moment of high donor engagement should encourage more supporters to log in without increasing donor churn.

Test setup

Key results

The optimization delivered a significant increase in Donor Portal engagement while maintaining stable fundraising performance.

• +21.22% increase in conversion to Donor Portal login
• No statistically significant change in ARPU
• No statistically significant change in subscription cancellations

Bringing more supporters into the Donor Portal did not come at the expense of donor retention or revenue.

Segment insights

The increase in Donor Portal engagement was consistent across devices:

• +23.19% increase in login conversion on desktop
• +18.56% increase in login conversion on mobile

No statistically significant differences were observed in revenue or cancellation rates across donor segments.

Conclusion

The hypothesis was confirmed.

Making the Donor Portal more prominent in donor emails resulted in a significant increase in supporter engagement, exceeding the original target by a wide margin.

Just as importantly, the increase in portal usage did not lead to more cancellations or lower revenue.

Because the change delivered a clear engagement benefit without introducing fundraising risk, we're rolling it out to all organizations.

What this means for you

The Donor Portal is more than a self-service tool. It's a place where supporters can stay connected to your organization, manage their giving, and discover additional ways to support your mission.

This test shows that sometimes small visibility improvements can have a meaningful impact on donor engagement. More supporters entering the Donor Portal creates more opportunities for future donations, upgrades, and long-term retention.

And as always, we validate every optimization with real donor behavior before rolling it out. If a change improves engagement without compromising revenue or donor experience, it earns its place in the platform.

→ Explore how the Donor Portal helps deepen supporter engagement