Monday Mobile Giving Roundup for Dec. 8
End-of-year fundraising campaigns are in full swing, so keeping up on all the latest news and resources can be a challenge. The Givelify Monday Mobile Giving Roundup is here to help.
Every Monday we pick the top five stories from the previous week’s Givelify Mobile Giving Daily to help you stay up-to-date. Subscribe now to get it delivered to your email inbox so you don’t miss a minute.
Securing Your Church’s Digital Giving
Secure digital giving requires more than IT expertise. Digital giving involves interaction with at least one outside vendor—the payment processor. Who should have the initial and ongoing interaction with this, and other, vendors in the digital giving process?
The natural tendency is to ask someone with information technology (IT) skills to handle it. You may involve IT staff, but someone in a top leadership position at the church must control the process.
While one person must initially establish an account with each payment processor, multiple staff should verify the initial set-up, including a high-ranking church staffer.
Maximizing Charity Donations This Christmas
For many of us Christmas Day is a chance to have a break from work, spend some quality time with loved ones and indulge in a little too much food. But before you turn on that out of office message and switch off for a few days, it’s worth checking you’ve got a few things in place to maximise donations over the Christmas break.
Be ready for the 12 days of mobile.
Throughout the year we typically see that visits to JustGiving from people on their mobile phones and tablets spike over the weekend. Makes sense right? Less people are in the office, so instead of using their PC at work to go online, they’re using their mobiles and tablets at home to access the internet.
Looking at our stats from last year (see fancy graph below), this trend is even more amplified over the Christmas break.
Read more on the JustGiving blog
#GivingTuesday Online Donations Up 36% from 2013
The third annual #GivingTuesday was held on December 2, 2014 and the results continue to be extremely positive.
Online giving for #GivingTuesday 2014 was up 36% compared to 2013. Blackbaud processed more than $26.1 million in online donations on #GivingTuesday 2014. This was up from the $19.2 million processed on #GivingTuesday in 2013.
There was a 15% increase in the number of nonprofit organizations that processed an online donation on #GivingTuesday 2014 compared to 2013. This growth continues to show the widening reach of the #GivingTuesday movement.
Read more on the npEngage blog
Nonprofit Donations: The Apple Pay and Google Wallet Effect
Major technology companies are stepping onto the mobile payment field, with Apple Pay and Google Wallet first at bat. Even the social image-sharing platform SnapChat has added a mobile payment feature.
This fresh technology isn’t just taking over the retail and social spaces. It affects nonprofit donations, too.
What one item is practically everyone carrying at any given moment? Their phone. That’s why it makes perfect sense for transactions to take place using a smartphone. These devices already do so much for us — why not add another task to the list?
With Apple Pay and its competitors, customers can use their smartphones to finalize transactions at the cash register. They don’t even have to swipe a credit card. They can pay instantly with their phone. Technology should make life easier for its users, and that’s exactly what mobile wallets bring to the table.
Read more on the Givelify blog
Church Giving Tops $50 Billion a Year in the U.S.–And Its Future Is Not a Collection Plate
Church giving is serious business. Scores of newsletters, workshops, and books are devoted to it, and consultants exist to advise institutions on how to maximize funds. A five-year study released last year estimated that “tithers”—Christians who donate 10% or more of their income to church or charity—contribute more than $50 billion a year. (And that’s not counting the many who give a smaller percentage of their income.)
Somehow, though, the offering process, when ushers pass baskets down the rows and worshippers voluntarily drop in checks or cash, has remained basically unchanged since the 19th century. But who carries cash, let alone checks, anymore?
Luckily for churches, a wave of apps and other digital giving options have risen up to bridge the gap.
Call it the 21st-century offering plate.
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