Hey Branjawn,

There has been significant discussion surrounding online donations including the eCommerce episode of the podcast as well as several threads including: Online Giving, Bookstores & Nonprofits, and Increasing Online Giving to Non-Profits and Charities.

No matter who develops your system (yourself, professional developer, or contract with 3rd party vendor) you will need an SSL Certificate, a Payment Gateway, and some sort of shopping cart or donate button. To find the best value you'll need to weigh fixed (startup and minimum charges) and variable (% of transaction) costs and try your best to guestimate who will be the most economical vendor.

As much as I dislike churches engaging in online giving, PayPal seems to be a decent option. What are your concerns?

-NP

Branjawn,

I doubt that there is a single, best and easiest way to accept donations. Instead, each organization will need to determine what works with their current site and their needs and make their own determination.

Most methods will involve doing some processing on your site. PayPal along with Ubercart could be used (with or without your site running SSL; I have a client site using PayPal for collecting (selling) membership dues that (easily) leaves all the secure processing to PayPal. Please note that from a philosophical standpoint I don't like using anything that charges what could be substantial discounts for donations; "selling" a "product" is a different situation.

There is an organization in Minnesota, GiveMN.org, that will cover donation costs. Linking to their site is a piece of cake. You may be able to find a similar organization in your area.

Hope this helps,
Curt

We have had persons who live in other states and overseas ask when we will have online giving available. So, this would be primarily for those who are not physically capable of attending Sunday morning but want to give.

I think I found that Google Checkout will allow this rather easily. I've always felt that Paypal was clunky and has historically not been 100% safe. Anyways, thanks for your input. I think we'll give the donate online option, but not highlight it, it will be there for those who specifically are seeking it. Also, I think there will be some note to increase the giving amount to offset the 2.5% service fee.

If your church is using a management system, most have an online giving component to them (church community builder, fellowshipone, etc.).

Otherwise, check out the non-profit pricing options for PayPal. Better rates than Google Checkout.

-Sam