As a nonprofit organization, you depend heavily upon donors to fund your work. Consequently, you and other leaders of charitable organizations are always looking for ways to increase giving. Most recently, nonprofits are seeing a large percentage of donations being received online or via a mobile device. If you haven’t been using technology for fundraising, you are missing out on a large pool of givers.
Fees Associated with Fundraising
To begin accepting credit cards online, you’ll need an e-commerce capable website or online portal. Organization is extremely important to giving when it comes to your website. Each page should provide a link to the donation page, and, it should also be easily accessed from the navigation area of the website. In other words, make it fast and convenient for your donors.
Next, you will have to contract with a credit card processing company. Before you sign a contract, it is imperative that you do your homework. Although many companies boast of having low fees, there are costs associated with each and every credit card transaction. In fact, no matter who you work with, you’ll have to pay the processing company for things like backend operations, payment processing and transferring of funds into your bank account. Card reward programs, like airline miles and hotel points, have increased fees associated with credit card transactions, even for nonprofit groups.
When choosing a credit card processing company to manage your account, you’ll want to work with a company that has experience in nonprofit or charitable organizations such as yours. The processing company should also have a professional donation system that is in compliance with all of the rules and regulations associated with merchant accounts.
Fraud Protection
Donors also want to be confident that their credit card is safe from fraud. In choosing your credit card processing partner, make sure they have taken the necessary precautionary steps to ensure your donor’s information is kept private from hackers. Transactions should always be done on a secure page. To protect your donors, don’t be afraid to ask about their security processes, payment gateway and risk management plans.
RevNew by Clarus, Zero Cost Credit Card Program
Clarus offers a program, called RevNew, that provides specific cost reduction for nonprofit groups. Our experience has led us to bring you an innovative way on collecting funds for your organization. Known as the Zero Cost Credit Card Program, along with streamlining the process, we have a processing system that totally eliminates the credit card processing fee for you altogether. How you might ask? By simply shifting the cost of the fees to the cardholder. Most donors do not mind as they have already made the decision to give to your organization. If the donor wishes not to pay the fee, they can process their transaction using a no-cost payment method, such as a debit card or ACH. This process not only saves the organization money, but it also helps your management team to be more efficient.
A Plus – Our Member Tracking Software
The program is also ideal for schools and other trade associations, community service organizations, professional associations, and philanthropic organizations. With CLARUS Zero Cost Credit Card Program, you’ll also get a free subscription to Member Trend, a member tracking program. Member Trend Software will help you to manage records, keep track of donations and follow up with donors in the future. You’ll be able to set a fundraising timeline and easily retrieve records of past major donors and goals met in previous fundraising seasons.
Sign up for a demo to learn how much you can save by switching to Clarus and the RevNew program.
