If you’ve made a donation in the last year, you’ve probably seen a modal donation form.
What’s a modal? It’s an element that is usually launched by a click, like a Donate button, that sits above the content of the webpage and requires the user to interact with it before they return to the rest of the page.
For donation forms, it means the form appears overlaid on top of the web page from which you clicked the Donate button, and requires you either to click the X to make it go away, or to make a donation. You can see the webpage behind the form, either blurred out or faded.
This is in contrast to the classic version of donation forms, which behave differently. Sometimes they’re embedded into the page in an iFrame, and sometimes they cause a new page to load or open in a new browser window or tab.
Why are modals everywhere? Because they increase conversion. More people complete the donation form, and fewer people abandon it. This is for several reasons: speed of loading, mobile-responsiveness, shorter forms, reduced decision fatigue, no loss of context, fewer clicks, and integrated digital wallets with mobile payment methods.
Other features: most software companies that offer modals for their donation forms also incorporate predictive AI to tailor the ask amount if the form can tell anything about the donor, like previous giving levels.
Modal forms also don’t require much in the way of external styling like a page wrapper or template, since they pop up on top of the web page and only include simple containers for elements like a photo, text, and the donor/payment fields.
This makes them faster to deploy. Not only do they have fewer input areas for the donor, reducing decision points and speeding up the donation entry process, there are fewer decisions to make for the nonprofit staff member creating the forms.
Here are some nonprofit fundraising software companies that offer modal donation forms. This list is not comprehensive so if your company offers a modal, let us know and we’ll add you!
- Fundraise Up
- Blackbaud (in RENXT)
- Bonterra (in EveryAction and DonorDrive)
- GiveCloud
- GoFundMe Pro (in Campaign Studio)
- GiveButter
- Funraise
- Donorbox
- DonorPerfect
- Virtuous (with Virtuous Raise)
If your online fundraising platform doesn’t offer a native modal donation form, chances are that a partner has made it possible to re-create that experience through some custom coding. We also have it on good authority that some other leading platforms will offer native modal forms in 2026: Engaging Networks, Blackbaud’s Luminate Online, and Funraisin, to name a few.
The conversion advantage that modals with modern digital wallets and predictive AI give makes it very likely that your organization would realize a high ROI by using them. We have noticed that not every nonprofit using software that we know offers modals is using them, though.
Why not? There could be a few reasons, including that it’s a busy time of year and having one more thing to do feels like too much. You might not know exactly how to get started.
But the potential for increasing fundraising means it’s worth exploring what it would take for your organization to launch a modal fundraising form. If you need a hand, our Virtual Administrator service can help you get a form set up. Reach out to us at hello@raiseheck.com.