Electronic/online giving has long been recommended as an effective way to sustain smoother cash flow and make it easier for your pledgers and regular givers to maintain steady giving even when they can’t attend church. Now is an opportune time to establish and promote your capacity to accept electronic and/or online donations for the long-term, not just as a short-term measure. And while there are always fees associated with online giving, consider also the money you leave on the table when you don’t accept eGiving in today’s culture. Here are some recommendations:
- Congregation members can go online or by phone to their banks to set up recurring payments to your church by check or by direct transfer if you give them your bank account information.
- PayPal is a simple payment processing company. Accounts are simple to set up and use, and will allow you to accept e-checks as well as credit card payments. Credit/debit card payment processing fees for charitable organizations are currently 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction.
- Vanco Payment Solutions is an excellent and highly recommended resource for comprehensive eGiving solutions – especially for churches. They are the vendor we use for diocesan purposes and can handle all types of electronic transactions from website donation campaigns to mobile app donations to text donations and more. Their “Start” plan has a monthly fee of $10, and credit/debit card payment processing fees are currently 2.75% + $0.45 per transaction. View the March 25, 2020 Webinar Vanco presented to the Diocese of New Jersey.
There are any number of other eGiving solution apps out there – Fundly, Qgiv, FirstGiving, DonateNow, etc. Most have very similar features but widely varying price structures. The two solutions listed above are among the most competitive and secure. There are also many digital wallets out there to facilitate electronic payments – Venmo, Zelle, AmazonPay, GooglePay, ApplePay, etc. Great care should be taken with security should you decide to set up an account with any of these apps, which typically charge around 3% to process credit card transactions.