A donor portal for a coastal land trust

Tidewater Land Trust protects about 9,000 acres of marsh, dune and woodland along the coast. Most of its money comes from individual supporters, many of whom have given for twenty years or more.

The problem

Giving to Tidewater was harder than it should have been. The donate page was a generic payment form that could not handle monthly gifts well, and anyone who wanted to change their amount had to phone the office.

Behind the scenes, things were messier still:

• Gifts arrived through three systems that did not talk to each other
• Year-end tax receipts were assembled by hand every January
• Supporters had no way to see what their giving had helped protect
• The small staff spent days each month matching payments to names

What we shipped

We began with a week of interviews: long-time donors, first-time donors and the two staff who handled the money. One quote from a supporter stuck with us: “I’d give monthly if I could stop it without a phone call.”

So control came first. The portal lets every supporter:

• Give once or monthly in under a minute, with or without an account
• Change, pause or cancel a monthly gift themselves, any time
• Download every receipt, including a yearly summary for tax time
• Read a short field note each season about the land their gifts protect

For staff, we built a quiet admin view: one list of every gift, matched automatically, with a nightly export for the accounting software. No more spreadsheets with three tabs called “final”.

How it went

We launched the week before the trust’s spring appeal, with the old form left in place as a fallback. It received four gifts in a month and was switched off.

Monthly giving grew quickly once it was easy to start and easy to stop. Most new supporters chose a monthly gift, and very few cancelled. Closing the books at month end now takes a day instead of a week.

What’s next

The trust is planning a land-purchase campaign with a public goal. We are adding a simple progress page and campaign-specific gifts, built on the same portal so supporters do not need a new login.