The donation that got lost in a phone note
Many donations get lost between the urge to give and the payment. Count the steps on your donation page and cut the ones you don’t need.
November 11, 2026Last updated November 11, 2026
A nonprofit that runs tutoring classes posts its year-end campaign on Instagram. At 10 p.m., the mother of two former students decides to give 500 pesos. She taps the link and lands on a page with an 18-digit bank account number and the line “send your receipt by WhatsApp.” She copies the account number into a note on her phone to do it tomorrow.
Tomorrow she has a meeting, then the grocery run, then her youngest’s geometry homework. The note stays there, under the grocery list, until she gets a new phone in 2028.
The scene is made up. The phone note holding a donation that never happened, on the other hand, is as real as it gets.
The urge to give doesn’t last long
The moment someone decides to help you is fragile. A photo, a story or a date set it off. If they can give in a minute right then, they give. If they have to open their banking app, add a new payee, wait for the token and then send a screenshot, chances are they’ll leave it for later. And later competes with everything else in their life.
So before comparing platforms, count how many steps your donation page puts between the urge and the payment.
Count the steps
Try it today. Take your phone, go to your site as if you were a donor and give 50 pesos. Count every screen, every field, every time you had to leave one app for another.
If you’re done in a minute with a card, you’re in good shape. If it takes five, with two apps and a WhatsApp message, you know where you’re losing donations.
A few things that usually help:
- Keep the donate button on your own site, on a page that also tells people why to give, instead of sending them to a generic page where your name is the only thing they recognize.
- Let people pay by card as well as bank transfer.
- Offer suggested amounts, so nobody has to work out what’s “normal.”
- Tell anyone who wants a receipt, before they pay, what details to send you. Ask your accountant for that and write it next to the button.
Fees matter less than you think
There are several platforms for taking card donations in Mexico. We compared the fees on a few, and on a 500-peso donation the difference between the most and least expensive was about three pesos. Choose the one your team understands and can manage. Those three pesos disappear on their own the day a mother leaves your account number in a phone note.
A monthly donor is worth more than a big one
If your platform supports recurring donations, offer them from the first click. Someone who gives 200 pesos a month lets you plan. Someone who gives 1,000 once leaves you happy in December and just as uncertain in January.
If you’d like someone who doesn’t know your donation page by heart to look at it with you, book a free 30-minute call.
