Why Planned Giving Microsites are a Bad Idea

I need to talk to you about something that's been on my mind for the past half year. One that sent me on an hours-long rabbit hole of research.

It's about how several big agencies still promote - and sell - Planned Giving microsites.

Yet all my hours-long research points me towards one conclusion - a Planned Giving microsite could lead you to lose $50,000 estate gifts.

(A microsite is essentially its own website with a unique domain - separate from your main website).

Here are all the reasons why:

One - It interrupts the donor journey.

Your Planned Giving donors are existing donors, volunteers, and followers. A gift-in-Will is likely the largest gift they will ever make, and you want to lead their journey towards it at every possible chance. Siphoning Planned Giving away from your main website doesn’t support this.

Two - It’s confusing.

Story time!

My family is affected by a disease and we went to our local disease-based charity for peer support. In that peer support, we were told about educational videos we should check out. I couldn’t find them anywhere on the local nor national site - not even YouTube - so I reached out to follow up and we were sent the link.

It was a microsite.

Their best educational content - meant for the public - was hiding in a microsite. It was impossible to find through their main website, even when you knew what you were searching for.

But even if you link the microsite in your web navigation, it can confuse the viewer.

Picture this: your donors click through to your Planned Giving microsite and everything else they were looking at is gone. They read through the Planned Giving information, and decide to consider it more later. Feeling inspired, they want to go back and read that beneficiary story they glanced over before. Or they want to go make a gift with their credit card. But they can’t - they're not on the main site. They click around, confused, then leave. And never return. It's a digital nightmare.

Three - It hurts your SEO by splitting web traffic.

Basically, you're competing against yourself and confusing Google. If a donor searches “leave a gift in your Will <CHARITY NAME>” you want your main website to be at the top. Heck, if a donor types “way to give to <CHARITY NAME>”, you want them to be directed to ONE site - that includes Wills, DAFs, monthly donations - every way to give. A microsite doesn’t support this - it dilutes your traffic, and makes it less likely that your website will show up at the top of any of those searches. (Also, there’s data that shows Google sometimes penalizes companies/ organizations with multiple sites - mainly because a while ago companies used microsites to try to dominate SEO. That means Google might de-prioritize you because you have a microsite).

Four - it strains resources.

Most nonprofits I’ve worked with struggle to maintain their website - so adding a second one is a recipe for disaster. Within a few years, and/ or a staff change over, a microsite can be lost. Out in the ether, never updated - log-ins gone. Forms collecting information from potential donors that go into a void, never followed up with again…

You don’t have to take my word for it. Just Google “are microsites a good idea?” and you’ll get plenty of blogs from marketers warning companies that they are generally only effective for short-term campaigns.

In fact, nearly all marketing advice out there states a microsite shouldn't be up for longer than a 6-month campaign.

Planned Giving is about lifelong relationships over years, if not decades. It’s not a 6-month “campaign”. Microsites are not an effective Planned Giving tactic.

Imagine creating a microsite for monthly giving. It seems absurd, right? You want to integrate monthly giving into your annual appeals, promoting them wherever you can. This is also the same for Planned Giving - it’s a way to give. It shouldn’t be siphoned off to a whole different website.

So why are Planned Giving microsites being pushed by so many agencies?

Honestly, I don’t know. I did a lot of research before publishing this article, and there’s so much information out there on why microsites are a bad idea for anything that's long-term and meant to be integrated into your existing customer/ donor journeys.

Maybe it's because most of these agencies are brought in for short contracts. They run “campaigns” - and that’s what a microsite is good for. And they get results - in the short term. They get hand-raisers. The problem is Planned Giving is about the long-game, and a hand-raiser isn’t worth much if you don’t have robust systems and messaging to support relationships that last for decades. (Including a website with comprehensive donor journeys that include Planned Gifts)

Based on my research, I’m convinced that a microsite as a service offering is proof that a Planned Giving agency is prioritizing short-term results above all else.

I didn't explore this topic to try to "sell" myself (it was to deepen my educational materials on Planned Giving best practices), but I realized that this is a sign these agencies are operating in a way that's opposite to how I operate. Even if I’m not working with a charity for a full year, we focus heavily on the systems and longevity of the program. Often the clients I work with have done campaigns with agencies before, but realize their massive holes in their program that need to be fixed to actually build a 7+ figure portfolio.

If you’ve invested in a microsite and are realizing it’s not effective - don’t fret! I recommend simply creating webpages within your existing website and transferring a lot of the content over. Try a “ways to give” sandwich drop-down if needed.

And if you need support creating acomprehensivePlanned Giving program, book a no-pressure discovery call.

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