Payment processing is getting cheaper
Howard Lake | 9 January 2012 | Blogs
With the launch in early June last year of CharityCheckout.co.uk, which has now gone commission free, and the recent announcement of the CAF Giving Widget, it seems that competition in the charity payment processing market is warming up.
This is good news for small and medium sized charities that may not have the revenue required to negotiate a deal directly with the banks for their merchant account. These new services allow charities to receive one-off and regular donations directly via their website and social medial profiles, without the need for a merchant account.
Until recently, many charities linked their website’s donate button directly to their JustGiving or Virgin Money Giving profile. This is a high-cost approach that is far from ideal, redirecting donors to independent third party websites to make their donation is a no-no.
CharityCheckout.co.uk offer its charities the ability to set-up an unlimited number of branded payment pages, so they can run specific campaigns and track donations from multiple sources. Similarly, the CAF Giving Widget is an integrated tool that fits into your charity’s website. These new services both provide charities with their own payment-processing tool and a Gift Aid reclaim service to help lighten the administrative load.
There are also alternative service providers, although they only offer one-off donation options. These include: Charity Choice, MY Donate, My Charity Page and others. Nevertheless, since 37% of donations are via regular payments, charities will still have to find another payment processor who can handle recurring payments if they are to make the most out of their online presence. It also seems that many of these providers do not offer an integrated or branded payment process.
So, between the main providers of regular and one-off donation processing, which offers the best value and features?
Chester Mojay-Sinclare is CEO of Online Giving Ltd.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.