Engaging Gen Z with Better Online Giving

By Jenn Reichenbacher

Generation Z is quickly becoming one of the most important donor audiences nonprofits can’t afford to overlook. More than 70% of Gen Z participated in some form of donating in a given week, surpassing older generations in overall giving participation, according to a recent GoFundMe and GivingTuesday report.

For nonprofit leaders, Gen Z represents a major long-term fundraising opportunity. As Gen Z’s purchasing power continues to grow, so will its philanthropic influence.

But more than previous generations, Gen Z expects giving to be instant, mobile-first, and frictionless. They’re accustomed to paying through digital wallets and embedded checkout experiences that remove unnecessary steps. So while they’re quicker to donate, they’re also quicker to click away without completing a donation if the experience is clunky.

Integrating up-to-date nonprofit payment processing infrastructure into your giving platform can improve conversion rates and support more sustainable fundraising. In addition to simplifying the giving experience for Gen Z (and other digital-native donors), contemporary payment technology can strengthen recurring giving, reduce processing costs, and provide better visibility into donor behavior.

As fundraising becomes increasingly digital, treating your payment setup as core fundraising infrastructure is essential to drive growth for your nonprofit.

Related story: Playing the Long Game: How Nonprofits Can Find and Keep Gen Z, Millennial Donors

Outdated Payments Are a Fundraising Risk

While donor expectations have evolved alongside the rise of digital and contactless payments, many nonprofit payment systems haven’t kept pace. Organizations across the nonprofit sector still rely on donation experiences that create unnecessary friction through redirects, lengthy forms, and manual card entry processes.

It’s understandable that many nonprofits have put off modernizing their payments stack. Tight budgets, board oversight, limited IT resources, and pressure to minimize overhead spending often push payment infrastructure upgrades behind more visible mission-focused investments.

However, treating payments as purely operational infrastructure can create larger fundraising challenges over time as digital giving continues to grow.

The impact extends beyond donor experience. Outdated payment infrastructure can limit visibility into donor behavior, weaken recurring giving programs, and create avoidable operational inefficiencies. Many organizations may also be overpaying because of outdated pricing structures or payment systems not designed specifically for charitable giving.

It’s time to assess whether your nonprofit’s current donation and payment processing experience can still support your organization’s growth objectives — and whether a more modern setup could help advance future fundraising priorities.

How to Modernize Nonprofit Payment Processing

Improving your payment infrastructure often starts with small but strategic changes that make giving easier for donors and more efficient for your organization. As donor expectations continue to evolve, focus on these five areas to create a seamless payment experience and optimize operational efficiency.

1. Simplify the Donation Experience

To begin modernizing the donor experience, simplify the path between donor intent and completed contribution. Embedded checkouts, digital wallets, hosted payment pages, instant confirmation, and streamlined recurring gift enrollment can all help improve conversion rates — particularly on mobile devices.

Your organization doesn’t need a full overhaul to make progress. Implementing a mobile-optimized donation page with Apple Pay, Venmo, ACH, and recurring billing capabilities can significantly improve usability without a major operational lift for internal teams.

Regularly assess donation flow performance across devices and payment types. If mobile traffic is high but conversions lag, or donors drop off before completing a gift, your payment experience likely needs attention.

2. Strengthen Recurring Donations

Donor retention is only as strong as the payment infrastructure supporting your recurring giving program.

If recurring payments fail because of expired cards, disconnected donor records, or ineffective billing workflows, you risk losing donors who may have intended to continue supporting your organization long term.

That's especially important given the average lifetime value of a recurring donor was $7,288 in 2025 — more than double the $3,607 average for non-recurring donors, according to Neon One's recent research on recurring donors.

To help protect and retain these high-value donor relationships, today’s payment platforms can help reduce those disruptions through capabilities like automatic card updater tools, smart retry logic, integrated recurring billing workflows, and omnichannel payment visibility. This visibility provides better insight into donor lifetime value so your nonprofit can develop stronger long-term engagement strategies.

For example, if a recurring donor updates their payment method after attending an event or contributing through a mobile campaign, that updated information should sync seamlessly across channels — not create fragmented donor records or missed recurring payments.

3. Turn Payment Data Into Fundraising Intelligence

Modern payment tools can help you better understand how donors engage across channels and campaigns.

Conversion trends, payment method preferences, recurring donor behavior, and abandonment patterns can help identify what is driving donor engagement — and where friction may be limiting fundraising performance.

Bringing online donations, event payments, membership fees, and text-to-donate campaigns into a more unified system provides clearer views of donor journeys. That visibility can help inform campaign planning and future fundraising investments.

For instance, a growing share of donations coming through digital wallets may indicate shifts in donor demographics and mobile engagement habits that should influence where and how you engage supporters moving forward.

4. Build Donor Trust With Secure, Scalable Payment Systems

Secure and scalable payment systems also protect donor data while supporting fundraising growth. Features like tokenization, hosted payment fields, and digital wallet authentication protect donor data while creating faster and more seamless checkout experiences.

As your digital fundraising programs grow, your payment infrastructure should help reduce operational risk and simplify compliance management. When evaluating payment providers, look for capabilities such as:

• Level 1 Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance
• Fraud detection that minimizes false declines on legitimate donations
• ACH processing with compliance support for recurring gifts
• Omnichannel payment options, including digital wallets
• Account updater functionality to keep recurring donations active

These capabilities can help you scale digital fundraising more confidently while protecting donor trust and reducing operational complexity.

5. Maximize the Value of Every Donation

Nonprofits collectively pay billions of dollars annually in payment processing fees, and smarter infrastructure decisions can help recover a meaningful portion of those costs.

Modern payment infrastructure can help your organization retain more revenue as digital fundraising and recurring giving programs continue to scale. Reassessing payment provider relationships, interchange-plus pricing models, merchant category code classifications, and donor-covered fee options, you can reduce unnecessary processing expenses, maximize the value of every donation, and redirect resources toward mission-driven initiatives.

Make Your Online Giving Experience a Competitive Fundraising Advantage

As Gen Z’s spending power rises, aligning your nonprofit payment processing with how they — and other digital-first donors — actually give becomes less optional. The donation experience shapes whether supporters finish a gift, come back to give again, and stay connected to your mission over time.

In many ways, payment infrastructure is a fundraising decision and a part of your fundraising strategy. By improving your donor’s online giving experience, you put your organization in a stronger position to attract, retain, and upgrade the next generation of donors.