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Our world is relying more on digital tools than ever before. For over 20 years, churches have been using online donation platforms because they provide so many practical and financial advantages.
In fact, online giving for churches has more than doubled since 2012, growing steadily by an average of 10% every year.
If your church is looking to add digital giving, this guide will help you take a deeper look at the types of online giving, their benefits and costs, as well as how your ministry can choose the best online giving platform.
The more convenient your church makes it to give, the more likely congregants are to engage and donate. Let’s dive into the benefits of online giving for churches and uncover what they mean to both your donors and your ministry.
Of all the ways to give churches tithes and offerings, most church members prefer to give online with a card instead of using cash or checks. Church members today are used to going online to pay bills, check their bank statements, and make charitable donations.
If you’d like to experience online giving for your church, there are free online donation platforms, like Subsplash Giving, that you can try out with no monthly fees or contracts.
On average, adding online giving tools for churches increases overall giving by an average of 32%.
This might sound too good to be true, but as you keep reading you’ll see how adding online giving can also increase your church’s tithes and offerings.
How many times have you seen the offering plate passed only to realize that you have little to no cash in your pocket? The fact is that very few people carry cash, but most do have a smartphone that allows them to give online.
The same is true for church visitors, both in-person or online, who may want to make an impulse donation. If you’re relying on them to use cash or checks, their ability to demonstrate their generosity is severely limited.
Instead of limiting your community to giving with cash or check while attending your church, why not allow them to use what is already in their pockets all week long—their cell phones and credit or debit cards!
By offering online donations through your church website, mobile app, and text-to-give, you activate the possibility for your donors to give from anywhere at any time.
This reason will please your treasurer and board members: Online giving is much more secure than conventional donation methods. In fact, cash and checks are the least secure ways to collect money!
Unfortunately, church fraud is quite common, even for ministries with safeguards in place. Don’t fall victim to misplaced cash or fraudulent checks—encourage your church to donate online.
Many donors prefer to plan ahead. The best online giving for churches will offer recurring giving that allows donors to schedule their tithes and offerings to automatically be withdrawn from their accounts. For example, your donors can plan their donations based on when they receive their paychecks.
Churches also benefit from being able to anticipate future donations. Subsplash Giving’s powerful dashboard allows you to easily see scheduled recurring donations. This can help you forecast your upcoming budgets with more accuracy.
Online giving is no longer the future—it’s here to stay. Churches receive more donations online than anywhere else.
That’s right, people give electronically to churches more than cash, checks, or other forms of charitable donations.
Adding online giving for your church will help you connect with younger donors who prefer to make their donations online. 84% of millennials donate to charities, a higher percentage than any other generation.
Online giving software tracks each of your tithes and offerings automatically, which is faster and more accurate than manually entering the data.
The best church giving platforms will also integrate with your church management software (ChMS) and other third-party accounting software, saving even more time.
The best online church-giving platforms, like Subsplash Giving, help keep you safe with world-class security protocols. For example, no one else can access a cardholder’s information except for the cardholder, and no one can see church donation records except for the churches themselves.
Your financial administrators can also view detailed donation reports when reconciling church bank statements, thus increasing accuracy and reducing the chances of fraud.
The best church giving platforms, like Subsplash Giving, do not charge any monthly fees or add hidden fees. The increase in overall giving that churches experience after adding online giving often covers the processing fees charged by giving providers. This means that churches end up receiving more overall donations in the long run.
The truth is that smaller churches often benefit the most from adding online giving. Most U.S. churches are under 200 people in regular attendance. Since they have fewer donors, it's important to give people every opportunity available to give.
Smaller churches also have fewer people to manage their finances. The best online giving platforms make it easy for an individual or smaller team to manage your incoming donations.
People often worry that learning to manage church giving software will be difficult. However, Subsplash Giving provides you with intuitive software so it’s easy to set up on your own. You also get a dedicated team to help walk you through setting up your account, adding online giving to your website and mobile app, as well as provide you with resources to help your congregation adopt and use online giving.
While seniors may have been intimidated by new technology ten years ago, they are now embracing technology as it improves their lives.
In fact, over half of all 65+ aged adults use their smartphones to manage their financial transactions online!
When it comes to giving online donations for churches, your seniors will appreciate the convenience of being able to give their tithes and offerings electronically, as well as being able to quickly access their giving history in their giving account profile.
The three most popular methods for online church giving are website giving, text-to-give, and mobile app giving.
Website giving allows your donors to give through your church’s custom website. In most cases, website giving entails using an embed code provided by your online giving provider to easily add giving to your website. Your donors then create an account, input their credit card or bank account details, and submit their donations.
The best online giving options for churches allow you to customize your website giving experience with your branding (such as church name and logo). Why is customization important? Church giving websites that have a consistent look and feel are six times more likely to receive donations than a generic giving webpage.
Text-to-give platforms offer a simple and popular giving tool that allows donors to give to your church by sending a text message. Text giving takes advantage of the facts that nearly every American carries a cell phone and texting is the most commonly-used feature. It’s quick and convenient for your donors, not requiring an additional app download.
Want to experience text-to-give for yourself? Simply text the word “giving” to 1-888-364-GIVE (4483). You’ll receive a special link to a demo giving account so you can see just how easy it is.
By far the most popular medium for making donations online is mobile app giving. In fact, mobile giving app donations have tripled in just a few short years. Donors simply download their church’s giving app, create an account in a few minutes, select the amount they want to give, and submit their donation.
There are three different types of mobile apps that churches can use to receive donations. Below we take a quick look at each of these and discuss their pros and cons:
Church giving apps make it easy for your donors to give and keep it simple for your ministry to manage. Subsplash Giving is the best example of a top church giving app. With custom giving reports, you can easily track your donations, donors, as well as send charitable giving tax statements.
Learn more about church giving apps.
All online giving solutions charge their clients a portion of every donation they receive, and many have additional costs on top of that. So, if a donor gives $100 to their church, how much of that money goes to the church? And, where does the rest of the money go?
Let's take a look at the various costs and fees associated with online giving solutions for churches, and how some solutions overcharge their customers.
When donors give to your church, all giving processors charge your church a certain percentage of each transaction. This is commonly referred to as a “processing rate.”
Every giving provider has its own processing rate made up of three distinct fees: interchange: (credit card companies charges), overhead (operating costs charged by the giving provider), and profit (goes directly to the giving provider).
Standard processing rates average around 2.9% for most online church giving solutions. Good processing rates range from 2%–3%. High processing rates would be anything over 4%. An online giving solution with a fairly typical processing rate of 2.9% would charge a church $2.90 to process a $100 donation.
ACH (automated clearing house), also called electronic checks or e-checks, simply moves funds from your donor’s bank account to your church’s bank account. Because the ACH process avoids the credit card interchange, the fees for these transactions are much lower than card donations, usually around 1%.
Encouraging your church to use the ACH option can lower your overall processing rates. Be sure to avoid any online giving providers that do not offer an ACH option.
Volume-based discounts are processing rates that lower as your donations increase. In other words, the more of your donations that are processed online, the less in processing fees you should pay. Some online giving platforms do not offer these discounts. Others will only offer discounts after tiresome negotiations of your processing rates.
The only donation platform offering automatic volume-based discounts is Subsplash Giving, thanks to its GrowCurve™ feature. It automatically lowers your card rates as your donations increase. This can lower your card rates to as low as 1.9% and ACH rates to as low as 0.5%. GrowCurve is offered at no cost to all Subsplash clients regardless of church size or giving volume.
All payment processing companies charge a flat per transaction fee. In most cases, this fee is around $0.30 per transaction. These fees are passed onto the church as part of the online giving costs.
Some online giving providers will charge a monthly fee, or subscription cost, simply to use their giving platform. Simply put, monthly fees go directly to the giving provider and provide no benefits to the church.
The best online giving platforms do not charge any monthly subscription costs for online giving.
This is where it’s important to pay attention to the fine print. Many online giving services offer low processing rates only to overcharge churches through additional or “hidden” fees. There are literally dozens of hidden fees, but the most common include:
It goes without saying that the best online giving platforms do not charge hidden fees!
Want to learn more about hidden fees? Download Hidden Fees Exposed, our free 20-page ebook for more helpful information.
Donor-covered fees work just as its name implies: Your donors can choose to cover any fees associated with their donations. For example, if a $100 donation has $3 in fees, your donors can opt to give a total of $103, allowing your ministry to collect the full $100 of their intended gift.
Allowing your donors the option to pay these fees on your behalf can make a significant impact on your overall effective rate. Be sure to choose an online giving platform that includes this option.
Your effective rate represents the true amount you are paying for each online donation. It combines the various fees and transaction charges, and divides those by the total dollars of donations processed.
If you’re already using a giving solution, we recommend taking your last statement and calculating your effective rate. You may be surprised by how high your rate is.
As the above illustration shows, if your effective rate is under 3%, you’re doing great. The closer you can get to 2% for online donations for churches, the better.
Rates between 3% to 4% are not good, and any effective rate over 4% is very high. If you’re being charged this much, it’s either time to negotiate or find another giving provider. Your ministry could potentially save thousands of dollars each year by getting a better effective rate.
You may be wondering which online giving platform is the best choice for your church. We recommend taking a minute to check out our side-by-side online church giving comparison to help you make your decision.
Making a choice is easier when you know that Subsplash gives you all of the essential features and benefits without any gimmicks.
Now that you have a good grasp of the benefits, options, and costs associated with online giving for churches, we encourage you to learn more about the very best of them: Subsplash Giving.
Subsplash Giving is the only option that has every feature your giving solution should have, and none that it shouldn’t have. Since we built the very first church app giving experience back in 2009, our mission has always been partnership over profit. We’re dedicated to helping the thousands of churches using Subsplash Giving to fuel their missions and keep their donations where they count.
Connect with one of our experienced ministry consultants to learn more about Subsplash Giving! Or, if you’re already a Subsplash client and would like to add Subsplash Giving, simply log in to yourSubsplash Dashboard to get started!
