Are You Planning a Digital Donor Wall or Honor Wall?

Are you researching a digital donor wall or electronic honor board? Non-profits need new tools to recognize donors and communicate key messages. Schools, colleges and universities want to celebrate donors, academic achievement or athletic accomplishment and have a way to communicate campus news. Museums and memorials want to honor heroes and communities in a way that keeps memories alive. Now, there’s a better way to celebrate people while lowering the effort to keep those notices up to date.

Top 5 Benefits of a Digital Donor Wall

Today, many celebrate people through annual reports that are printed and mailed out. It’s a nice way to put a spotlight on the contributors to your health foundation, charity or cause. However, once it is shipped out, it largely sits in drawers or file cabinets gathering dust. For an always-on way to acknowledge contributors to your cause, why not celebrate your funders with digital messaging boards that adorn the walls of your facility.

Top 5 benefits of digital donor and honor boards include:
1. Instant updating of new donations, funders and volunteers
2. Spotlight on high dollar donors and their history of gift giving
3. Show program results, events and announcements alongside donor recognition lists
4. Allow visitors and guests to explore the history of your organization
5. Use QR codes for on-the-spot donations

Dynamic Digital Donor Wall Content Options

Unlike printed annual reports and newsletters, a digital donor board enables your fundraising team to upload and maintain donor lists using an intuitive, simple Internet-based portal. Update your donor lists ad hoc, weekly, or monthly with a few mouse clicks. It’s a great way to say thank you to your donors and inspires others to make a lasting impact on your mission by joining the ranks of contributors.

Choosing the Right Digital Display Type

As you consider your donor or honor wall, you’ll need to plan how much room you need. What size of display(s) will best fit the space? There are many digital content design options related to your choice of screen size. The larger your display, the more easily it accommodates rich information showing on the screen. Consider both horizontal and vertical orientation as well as multi-panel displays. Even if you have a rough idea or the dimensions of your space, we can work with you on the right display hardware and types of enclosures that will fit. Enclosures that surround the display can range from slimline to enclosures in classic wood or metal styles, as well as custom colors that match your brand.

Next, consider whether you want static or touch screen for your displays. Touch screen digital displays enable you to deliver information more easily on your organization by enabling visitors to select a button that allows them to drill into content. Typically, a main screen has a “slideshow” area that auto-rotates visual content that you load in, a main picture, and buttons facilitating additional discovery. A static view means that the screen is contactless and visually shows all information needed. Since static views need to display all key information, organizations often opt to have multiple displays side by side or in an interesting formation so that the visual history of the organization, simultaneous viewing of all donors, and other content is “always” visible.

Novant Healthcare Donor Wall

Content Ideas

Once you decide on the digital “canvas” for your project, now you can plan the kind of content and visuals to include. Many start with background designs reflective of their organizations brand or mission. Next, they add in the core honoree content to celebrate their supporters. What’s great about digital signage is that messages can rotate and change often. That means that multiple messages and topics can appear in timed “flows” that grab viewer attention. A new TouchSource innovation with our Spark PX™ Platform is that we can help you plan a secondary project that takes over your displays for a special event, as one example. It’s great for organizations that want certain content to show during daytime hours, and specialty welcome messages, event details and other information for special events.

Organization mission
Mission or history videos and visuals
Donor Lists
Staff lists
Spotlight on key volunteers
Messaging on events, donor drives and organization news
Photos of your team, volunteers, donors and beneficiaries of services
Special event or special project screen takeovers with timed duration

Digital Designer Advice & Consultation

At TouchSource, people make the difference. Our creative design team works with you on your project to understand your goals, communication needs and design style. These are all unique experiences. So, you’ll want a partner who works with you to envision what’s possible, what will look good on a digital display, and how to take advantage of signage features. Our designers can help you learn about the:

Use interactive signage features effectively to engage passers by (we call them passive users).
Schedule content shifts according for different messaging day vs evening, or for special events. You can even greet special visitors by loading in a special message and timing it for their visit to your building.
Layouts, fonts and graphic mix — which we’ll take care of — but which are easiest for visitors of all ages to read.
Setting up your ADA viewer that draws key content within reach of people using wheelchairs.
Best use of video content within your software.

All of this comes with as a part of your Digital Onboarding Experience at TouchSource. We interview you for your needs and guide you through your options. No extra cost for the advice. We see it as part of the experience with all of our projects.

What’s the Difference Between a Donor Wall and an Honor Wall?

The options and design choices are largely similar. Choose the display size, touch or static, and the important content that you’d like to convey. Our digital designers will work with you to understand the amount of listings you want to display, how frequently you want to rotate them, and even special “spotlights” that you may want to add to your display. You may even have visuals of your organization or mission that you want to prominently feature. We’ll help you choose a design that works, and is easy to maintain.

US Airforce Academy Honor Board from TouchSource

Honor Wall Content

Clients typically like to show the following content:

Veterans and Fallen Heroes by Service and Year
Academic and sports achievements of students
Volunteers and volunteer activities
College and University alumni by year
Alumni, volunteer and donor gifts
Events, programs, donation opportunities and gift store information
Use QR codes for on-the-spot donations

Inspirational Donor Wall and Honor Wall Examples

If you’re like us, you want to see some examples to get an idea of what others are doing. Check out the examples below or call us to get a tour of our staff favorites to give you a taste.

Ask about these Donor Wall examples: