Glossary

Page Views count how often a webpage is accessed by users. Each visit to a page is recorded as a Page View, regardless of whether the same person visits the page multiple times. To further evaluate the reach and relevance of a website, the following KPIs are often used in addition:

• Unique Visitors: The number of individual users who have visited the website.

• Page Hits: All server requests required to load a page, including HTML, CSS, images, and other files.

Paid Marketing in online fundraising involves leveraging paid advertising to increase the reach and conversions of fundraising campaigns and digital platforms. Unlike organic marketing, paid strategies deliver fast, measurable results but often come with higher costs.

Common paid marketing formats for nonprofits:

1. Google Ads and Ad Grants

2. Social Media Ads (especially Meta Ads)

3. Video campaigns on YouTube

4. Google Demand Gen or PMAX campaigns

5. DV360 (Display & Video 360)

A key success factor in paid marketing is the strategic allocation of the media spend across channels that resonate most with donors. Comprehensive media analyses provide critical insights into channel effectiveness, helping to distribute the advertising budget in a way that aligns with donor preferences. Additionally, effective tracking offers valuable data for continuous campaign optimization, ensuring better performance throughout the campaign’s lifecycle.

Pay-As-You-Go is a widely used pricing model for Software-as-a-Service products, where customers only pay for what they actually use. Unlike transacSciher tion-based fees, users don’t pay per donation but per feature they choose to activate. This makes expenses more predictable and transparently tied to the selected feature set. At Soulclick, for example, nonprofit organizations can choose the features they want to use – the more features they select, the higher the monthly fixed fee.

A Payment Gateway is a digital gateway between the donor and the nonprofit organization in Online Fundraising. When all security and commercial requirements are met, the gateway opens to ensure a secure transaction. The gateway facilitates a seamless transaction, encrypts payment and credit card data, and forwards it to the payment institution (see Acquirer). Once the payment is approved, it is confirmed via a success message and subsequently processed.

A Payment Token in online donations is a secure, unique identifier that represents sensitive payment information, such as a credit card number, without storing the actual data. Payment tokens are commonly used to protect donor information by replacing sensitive details with a randomly generated string (= the token) of characters. This token can then be used to process payments instead of the real data. Soulclick utilizes payment tokens to handle online donations and safely manage recurring donations without needing donors to re-enter sensitive information. Since payment tokens require a secure infrastructure, they incur processing fees.

PayPal Donations is one of the most popular forms of online donations in many European countries in which PayPal is the dominant payment method, including Germany. Since donors with a PayPal account don’t need to enter personal payment details, the checkout process is very smooth and conversion-friendly.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is an online advertising model where advertisers pay a fee each time a user clicks on their ad. It is widely used on search engines, social media platforms, and display networks. PPC campaigns allow businesses to target specific keywords, demographics, and interests, ensuring that ads are shown to relevant audiences. This model is cost-effective because advertisers only pay when users actively engage with their ads, helping to maximize ROI by focusing on the clicks most likely to convert into customers.

PCI Compliance refers to adherence to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a set of security standards designed to ensure that all companies accepting, processing, storing, or transmitting credit card information maintain a secure environment. Created by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) — which includes major credit card companies like Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB — PCI DSS aims to protect cardholder data, reduce credit card fraud, and safeguard sensitive financial information. Soulclick also complies with PCI DSS standards, ensuring that online donations are processed in a secure environment.

In Peer-to-Peer Fundraising (P2P), supporters create their own fundraising campaigns on behalf of a charity. Online donation platforms like Soulclick make it easy for supporters to launch and manage their own fundraisers. P2P fundraising is especially popular with local organizations aiming to engage and grow their community. These campaigns can be inspired by a variety of occasions, such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, or memorial donations.

A Persona is a theoretical model representing a typical donor, described based on various segmentation criteria, such as demographics, psychographics, and behavior. Personas are used in communication and fundraising to customize messages and campaigns for specific target groups. They can be developed by using data e.g. from surveys, focus groups, donor data assessments, and Google Analytics metrics.

A Petition collects signatures to raise awareness of social, ecological, or political issues through both analog and digital media, applying pressure on political decision-makers.

Platforms like Avaaz and Change.org offer digital signature collection and often combine this with fundraising campaigns. This approach allows them to expand their reach through paid advertising and attract additional supporters.

Phishing is a type of cyber attack in which attackers use deception to trick individuals into providing sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, credit card data, or other personal details. Attacks typically involve fraudulent emails, messages, or websites that appear to come from a reputable source.

In digital fundraising, phishing poses severe risks to a charity's reputation and donor trust. Attackers may create fake donation forms or fundraising emails that imitate the nonprofit’s brand to fraudulently solicit donations.

A Plugin is a small module that extends the functionality of a website or software. Plugins provide end users with flexibility without significantly increasing the complexity (codebase) of the application. They can be used, for instance, to expand the design options of a modular website or to offer additional services, such as SEO monitoring.

Product Ownership is a pivotal role in agile software development, particularly in frameworks like Scrum. The Product Owner (PO) is responsible for maximizing the product's value and guiding the development process from a strategic perspective. This includes managing the Product Backlog, which prioritizes requirements, tasks, and opportunities for improvement.

Core responsibilities of the Product Owner:

• Prioritization: Determining which features or requirements should be developed first, based on their importance to stakeholders.

• Stakeholder collaboration: Working closely with clients, users, and other key groups to align the product vision with their expectations.

• Clear communication: Setting clear goals for the development team and ensuring everyone has a shared understanding of the product’s requirements.

While the Scrum Master focuses on team dynamics and process efficiency, the Product Owner is responsible for shaping the product’s vision and ensuring its alignment with business goals and user needs.

Profiling involves systematically collecting and analyzing data to create detailed target group profiles. The resulting personas are typically based not only on traditional sociodemographic characteristics but also on behavioral patterns.

This approach enables a more tailored and targeted engagement in digital fundraising. However, strict compliance with legal data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR) is essential.

Programmatic Advertising refers to the automated buying and selling of digital ad spaces using software and real-time bidding (RTB) rather than manual negotiations. This system leverages algorithms to target audiences with precision, bidding on ad space in real-time auctions. By analyzing data such as user behavior, demographics, and browsing habits, programmatic advertising allows advertisers to efficiently reach their ideal audience.

Public Fundraising refers to the targeted acquisition of donations from individuals, including single donors, benefactors, and online contributors. This is achieved through various channels and methods such as mailings, face-to-face campaigns or online fundraisers. While public fundraising primarily seeks unrestricted donations, appeals and campaigns can still be project-specific and personalized.

Pull Marketing focuses on attracting potential donors who are actively searching for specific topics. Nonprofits achieve this through methods like organic social media posts, blog articles, or search engine optimization (SEO).

Pull strategies are highly effective for driving organic reach and traffic in online fundraising. However, they rely on the target audience already being interested in the topics. To effectively promote new content or campaigns, nonprofits should pair these efforts with push marketing measures to proactively generate attention.

Push Marketing involves online fundraising activities that proactively deliver (or "push") content to potential donors. It is primarily used for campaigns and includes paid ads (e.g., Google Ads, Meta Ads) and email campaigns.

Push strategies are highly effective for generating quick awareness. However, for a balanced online fundraising, nonprofits should also leverage pull marketing to build long-term organic reach and trust.