Giving Tuesday Ready: A Simple Website Checklist for Ministries and Charities

You don’t need a new website, and there’s comfortable time to get ready. You need to walk the path a donor walks and smooth out the rough spots.

Here’s a plain checklist to help ministries and charities make giving easy: a donate button people can find, a giving page that works on phones, accessible forms, and a simple email and social plan for the day.

1 Make the donate button easy to find

A donor shouldn’t have to hunt for how to give. Pull up your home page on a phone and a computer and ask: can I see a way to give within one tap or one scroll?

• Put a clear “Give” or “Donate” button in the main menu, ideally styled as a button so it stands out.
• Add a giving section on the home page for Giving Tuesday, with a short sentence about what gifts will do and a button to the giving page.
• Make sure every link to giving goes to the same, current page, not an old form from a past campaign.

2 Test your giving page on a phone

Many donors will tap through from an email or a social post on their phone, so that’s where your giving page needs to work best.

• Give a small test gift yourself on your phone, start to finish. Then check that the confirmation email arrives and the gift shows up in your giving platform.
• Make sure the page loads quickly and the form isn’t cut off or squeezed on a small screen.
• Keep the form short. Ask only for what you need to process the gift and send a receipt.
• Look at the page as a first-time visitor: does it say who you are and what the gift supports, in a sentence or two, near the form?

If your giving form is embedded from a third-party platform, test it on the actual page where donors will see it, not just in the platform’s preview.

3 Make your giving form accessible

Some faithful supporters use a screen reader, need larger text, or can’t use a mouse. An accessible form lets them give without help, and it’s clearer for everyone.

A few basics from the WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines you can check yourself:

• Every field has a visible label, not just faint gray text that disappears when you type.
• Text and buttons have strong contrast against the background.
• You can move through the whole form with the Tab key on a computer and see where you are.
• Error messages are clear and say what to fix (“Please enter your email address”), not just a red outline.
• Gift amount buttons work with the keyboard, and the custom amount field is labeled.

Some of these issues are hidden in the code and only show up in a proper scan. That’s where a closer look helps (more on that below).

4 Plan a simple email and social rhythm for the day

A short, warm plan written ahead of time is plenty for most ministries.

Email (3 short messages):

• A week before: let supporters know Giving Tuesday is coming and share one story of what their giving makes possible.
• The morning of December 1: a short invitation with one clear “Give now” button.
• The evening of December 1: a brief thank-you and a last, gentle invitation for anyone who meant to give.

Then send a thank-you to everyone who gave in the days after. Gratitude matters more than the ask.

Social (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever your people are):

• A post a few days before, a morning post and afternoon update on December 1, and a thank-you post afterward.

Use real photos of your people and your work, link every post to the same giving page, and put it all on a calendar now so the day itself is calm.

Jube Dankworth has built websites since 1999 and founded Net Media Consultants in 2001. We’re rooted in Houston, serving businesses across the US. Questions? Email jube@netmediaconsultants.com.