Online Giving

[BSealey33]

My name is Ben Sealey and I co-own a www.simplegive.com that provides online giving and tithing to churches. We also provided online registrations for churches. We pride our selves on be helping meeting the different needs that each church has when it comes to these items. There are many benefits to online giving.

Check our site out. http://www.simplegive.com

[jsarber]

I have a question about online giving. How successful has anyone been with this? It turns out my costs for developing a new church site (for an entire denomination) is going to be more than I thought and that's not including my time and labor. I am in the process of setting up a Paypal donate option on my personal website and was just curious if others have tried this and been successful.

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Jeremy,

I added a "Donate" button to my site (Great Church Websites) not long after I launched the site in April 2004. (The same button is at the top of every page of this forum, too.) At the time, I received a few donations, including one for US$100. Another individual donated half the cost of the proprietary software (vBulletin) that I use for this forum. I don't believe that that was necessarily connected to the presence or not of a Donate button on my website.

Fast forwarding now, I can tell you that I have not received a donation for the past 3 1/2 years. I think you'll find that people generally don't give.

Great Church Websites is a registered Oregon not-for-profit organization, but is not a 501c3 organization, so donations are not tax deductible. If your organization is a 501c3 organization, this may increase the amount of donations you receive. However, I still think you're not likely to receive many donations.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to add a Donate button — just don't be disappointed if you receive few donations.

Ben's company (see first post in thread) offers a service to make it possible for churches to receive donations online. However, what we're talking about there is a means to make it easier for church members to give, online, the tithes and offerings that they would have given anyway.

They're already motivated to give, therefore. That's not necessarily going to be the case for users of your site or mine.

[jsarber]

Thanks for the reply, David. I put the button on my site even though I do not expect much from it. I provided a page to explain what their donations would be used for also. I suppose every contribution would help even if it's only a couple of small ones. It can't hurt to try, right?

Anyone else had any luck with online giving?

[sgt49]

Speaking of church giving, I noticed that Google is offering free Google checkout services for non-profits to accept donations. I am thinking of setting this up for the website I'm developing for our church.

Steve Tahan
Redeemer Pres Ch.

[flutem3]

Speaking of church giving, I noticed that Google is offering free Google checkout services for non-profits to accept donations. I am thinking of setting this up for the website I'm developing for our church.

Steve Tahan
Redeemer Pres Ch.

Hi, Steve,

Where did you find the above for church giving? I looked all over and found how to buy stuff from stores, but I didn't find how to accept donations from parishioners to the church. You are talking about pledges, etc. right?

Welcome to the forum. You will find a terrific group of people here. I learn all kinds of stuff...like what you mentioned. Thank you. :D

I hope you enjoy being here.

Carol

[sgt49]

flutem3,

Thanks, glad to be here. I get a number of trade newsletters and one had the following Information Week article ink:
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=206904809

If you don't want to read it there is a link to: http://www.google.com/nonprofits/


Steve Tahan
Redeemer Pres Ch.

[exiruscreative]

Does anybody have a review of other online giving options? Thanks.

[exiruscreative]

I just wrote a review of some online giving options:
http://www.squidoo.com/Online-Donations-for-Churches-and-Non-Profits

Does anybody have a review of other online giving options? Thanks.