Yes! Another great reason to consider Churchteams online giving. Yesterday we released a new option to allow your givers the choice to cover the transaction fees for their online contribution. To be honest when I first heard of the idea of "No fees online giving," I was skeptical.
First of all, there is no such thing as "no fees" online transactions. Banks and credit card issuing companies all charge for their services. So, while "no fees" is technically true from the church administrative perspective, it feels misleading in that the fees are just passed on to the giver. It seemed to me that "no fees" was marketing hype to get people's attention.
Second, I remember the days when gas stations added on a fee if you paid by credit card. Consumers didn't like that, so the companies gave up on it and figured out how to absorb it. So, this feature fell into the "wait and see" category on our development roadmap.We waited. Then an XP who has been a long time client and friend let us know that he was interested in a new "fee-free for churches" online giving product to save money. We asked around, researched further and saw that the time had come. We learned that there are a high percentage of givers who, if given the option, are glad to "cover the fees" for their online donation.
So, we built it. Here are a few things to know about our "Cover Fees" feature.
The feature is not built to skim more fees for the church nor for us. If givers check the box to "Cover fees" when they give, the system just increases their donation (making fees tax-deductible) to cover the Churchteams processing fees, which are some of the lowest in the industry. These are:
$0.39 + 0.25% for ACH
and $0.25 + 2.2% for Credit Cards
To be clear, credit card fees vary based on the type of card that people use. 2.2% is a fixed rate that covers the expenses, including monthly fees, of almost all Churchteams online giving clients. The percentage of people choosing to cover fees, the types of credit cards they use, and the volume of monthly online giving all factor into how much of your monthly giving fees will be covered by givers.
As an online giving client, enable this feature by checking that box on the Online Giving Options page. Giving > Settings > Online Giving > Online Giving Options / Text-to-Church.
If you are not a Churchteams online giving client, just let us know you're interested by emailing Giving@Churchteams.com. We have a debit card only solution if you prefer.
Note: "Cover fees" is really just a calculated addition to the contribution givers are making to your church. All online giving fees each month are still automatically taken out of your bank account. As people choose this option, you will see an increase in your giving that will get closer and closer to off-setting this monthly fee entirely.
To track your "Cover fees" progress, we have added lines to both the batch summary and the contribution summary reports that look like this.
"5 of 6 fees covered" indicates there are 6 online donations included in this summary report, 5 of them covered fees. The report might also include check, cash and other non-online giving transactions. These are not included in this metric.
