Is it Worth it to Set Things Up to Receive Donations by credit card?

Summary:

It is cost effective to allow donors to charge donations; they give slightly more, can arrange monthly installments, and the organization may save on printing and postage.

Barry Rueger wrote in soc.org.nonprofit on 24 Aug 1995 in response to a
question from Dale B. Bonar:
The QUESTION: Is it worth it for us to set up a VISA/MC account so
donors can charge their donations? (E.G., will increased donations make
up for the costs of the account?)

Advantages:

People often give somewhat larger donations on cards. It's not "real"
money.

You have the donation _now_ , rather than after spending money on
followup letters and business reply envelopes. The savings in postage
and paper may balance the commission charged.

The ideal is to encourage small, monthly payments to their card - say
$10 - 50. Over a year you've got $120 - 600. This is more than many
people will give in a lump sum. Plus, once the charges are happening,
they can more or less go on forever.

As far as the $300 card reader terminal: whine and beg, and assure them
that you'll only ever do two or three transactions a week - maybe
they'll let you get by with phoning the 800 number for authorisations.

Yup - they're worth it.


Friends of Hamilton Wentworth Community Radio
107 Victoria Avenue, Hamilton, Ont. L8N 2S9

http://netaccess.on.ca/~friends/index.html
email friends@netaccess.on.ca
(905) 525-6699 (905) 523-5345 fax

Small organizations may find that it is not necessary to do all of this themselves. The Network for Good (http://www.networkforgood.org/) offers a free service that will process donations for any organization listed in the Guidestar (http://www.guidestar.org) database. Look at http://www.networkforgood.org//npo/fundraising/donations/