Church Fundraising Online

Transcription

1 Church Fundraising Online How do we do it? The Church of Scotland Stewardship and Finance 1

2 Contents Why should our church fundraise online? page 2 How to use paypal page 4 How to use an online provider page 5 Fundraise from shopping page 8 Text Giving page 10 App Giving page 11 And finally (your church s website) page 12 2

3 Why should our church fundraise online? 1. Many of those attending church give by standing order, or by putting money in the open plate during worship. This method of giving should always be encouraged as it forms an important part of our worship. However, we should be alert to avenues for raising money through grants, legacies, events etc. Online fundraising is the fastest growing area of fundraising in the UK. One recent report showed that 49% of UK charities received donations online. For most of these charities their online fundraising contributes between 5% and 10% of their overall giving. However, online donations have been growing about 50 percent each year. 2. Fundraising is not a substitute for stewardship 3. Whilst our church members give to enable ministry, fundraising can be a useful tool for specific causes relevant to the local church e.g. new roof, or mini bus to provide transport. 4. Most of our income probably comes from the offerings from our church members. Fundraising, and online fundraising in particular, allows us the opportunity to provide an income stream outwith our membership. * 5. As more people view websites through their phones, the trend is moving towards online transactions. 6. As more giving shifts online, your church s presence on the Internet is paramount. Develop it now, in concert with your other fundraising activities How do we set up our online fundraising? There are different ways to fundraise through your church s website. You could set up a paypal account, and insert a link to this via your church s website, or you could make use of an online provider who will allow you to create a fundraising page with a donate button on your church s website. That provider will do all necessary administration for you. Online fundraising with PayPal or an online provider can be: Simple -- Collect donations quickly and easily. Safe most online providers have a proven record of security. Powerful -- Easily spread the word with your donors. *A little word of caution here care should be exercised by Kirk Sessions not to invite donations from out with the parish in line with Act V

4 How to use paypal Sign Up Complete the sign up form. They will send you an and you simply click on a link to confirm your address. Register an account Complete your church s account details Donate Button You can copy and paste one of Paypal s Donate buttons, or a Giving Widget onto your church s website, blog, or . All donations go directly into your PayPal account for easy access and tracking. You can even accept credit card payments. Reach out to friends through social media Use the power of your social network to spread the word about your cause. Create apps for Facebook and websites quickly and easily to attract more donations. 4

5 How to use an Online Provider How do they compare? Provider Charity Fee Set-up Fee Regular Subscription Gift costs Debit Card Fee Credit Card Fee Give.net N/A FREE 3% FREE* 1% (Company 2%) Justgiving N/A 15 Monthly 5% 17p 1.3% Bmycharity 150 FREE N/A 1.6% 1.6% MyDonate N/A FREE N/A 15p 1.3% VirginMoneyGiving 100+VAT FREE 2% 1.45% (Amex 1.6%) 1.45% (Amex 1.6%) Here is how give.net works 100% not-for-profit. Give.net is a part of Stewardship, a Christian charity. There are no profits at the end of the year. Give.net reclaim your Gift Aid Give.net claim Gift Aid automatically, on a weekly basis, which ensures that reclaimed tax reaches your church as soon as possible (usually between six to eight weeks). Easy to use reporting Stay up to date with how much you've raised and how successful your fundraising has been. Easily accessed reports allow you to keep track of how much you have raised online. View them online and download to Excel or other software to help with your accounting, or in order to create mailings to supporters. Getting started with give.net 5

6 Register Log on to give.net Click on the register a charity link and complete the form. Design your page Once you have received your ID number, you can begin designing your fundraising page. Log in to your account, click on the tab account details located on the grey bar. Then click on the tab profile. You will be guided through the set up, Donate Button You can copy and paste one of give.net s Donate buttons, or a Giving Widget onto your church s website, blog, or . All donations go directly into your give.net account for easy access and tracking. You can even accept credit card payments. Remember give.net do all your gift aid, and they thank your donors. You can access a full list of your give.net supporters by logging in to your account via stewardship.org.uk 6

7 Give.net the numbers A donor s gift Gift aid 2.50 Admin 0.38 Card processing * 0.00 Your charity receives Fees Just 3% of donations. No set up fee. No monthly fees and no hidden charges. From an original donation of 10.00, your charity will receive from Stewardship. * There are no card processing fees for donations made using debit cards. If the giver makes a donation using a credit card, their card provider will charge a fee of 1% (2% for company cards). 7

8 Fundraise from Shopping Do you ever shop online? Did you realise that - for no extra cost - every purchase you make could ensure a donation to your church? Sounds too good to be true? It's not. When you shop online, the cost to the retailer is much lower than if they sold you the same item through a shop. As a result, dozens of household name retailers (the same ones that you would probably be using anyway) and hundreds of smaller businesses have already signed up to internet shopping donation schemes, whereby they agree to pass on a percentage of this saving to a fundraising cause nominated by the shopper. So if you are fundraising for your church, by buying the same product from the same retailer for the same price that you would have done anyway, you could still ensure a donation is made to your church. All you have to do is register with an online shopping website that has a fundraising agreement with the retailer (this is sometimes called a "partner" or a "portal" website) and your fundraising will start automatically. The more people you can persuade to do the same, the more money you will raise. If you want to buy a book from Amazon or a TV from Argos, go ahead but by using an organisation such as easyfundraising.org.uk, your church will receive a donation. You pay exactly the same price for the book, tv or anything else but the company make a donation to your church. Brilliant and easy!! 8

9 Here s how it works: 1. Register your church at easyfundraising.org.uk. It s free and should only take a few minutes. Once you submit your form, your registration will be validated within 2 days. 2. Promote your fundraising idea intimate that your church is registered. Encourage people to shop via easyfundraising. Hand out cards after worship with all the details of what easyfundraising is. 3. Make a purchase. Let's say you want to buy a book from Amazon. Instead of going to amazon.co.uk, you go to easyfundraising.org.uk first - or you can use the easyfundraising toolbar. You click from the easyfundraising website through to Amazon to make your purchase. The price of the book is exactly the same as if you'd visited Amazon directly. 4. Get a donation: After you have bought your book, Amazon (or whichever company) will make a donation to your church as a thank you for shopping with them. Easyfundraising collect these donations for your church, and it costs nothing! We have set up ourselves on to raise funds from church members shopping online. We are giving out leaflets to the congregation this Sunday. It's a great idea for any congregations with younger members who use the internet. Heather, Crosshill Church, Motherwell Just what is needed! Such an easy way of raising money for charities that struggle with finances. Phil Owen, 3rd Knowsley Scouts. 9

10 Text Giving JustGiving offer a free service called JustTextGiving which enables registered charities to receive donations made through mobile phones. This is currently only open to registered charities. If you are a registered charity and would like to try this out, all you needs to do is contact to find out how to register for JustTextGiving You ll be asked to choose your own unique charity code of 4 letters and 2 numbers e.g. COFS12. Once you ve received confirmation from JustTextGiving that you are set up, ask people to donate by texting COFS12 10 to the number If they prefer, they can donate 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 by texting COFS12 1, COFS12 2, COFS12 3 etc instead. At present, the only amounts people can donate are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 10. There are no charges for either the church or for the donor for this service. The donation is added to the donor s phone bill (or debited from their credit balance if they use pay as you go). They receive an automatic acknowledgement with a link for Gift Aiding, thanking them for their donation. This has great potential for one-off fundraising events, for churches in areas where tourists drop in and for events with lots of young people present. For example, you could have a poster on the wall saying: To help preserve our beautiful church, donate 10 now: just text COFS12 10 to ramblers, tourists and other visitors may these days be more likely to have their mobile phones with them than to have any cash in their pockets! You could also print it on service sheets for concert programmes, project it onto the wall at your youth group events, include it as the final slide on your powerpoint presentation; there are lots of possibilities. That said, we have not heard of many churches which have managed to raise significant sums through mobile phone giving; please contact us if your church has! 10

11 Mobile Giving Mobile banking is in its infancy, but is growing fast. Whilst many applications are only for account holders of a particular bank, the Pingit system from Barclays is more generically applicable. Pingit is a system for the mobile transfer of money in the UK. It is available to all UK current account holders aged 16 or over. The Pingit app is free and is available for Apple (ios), Android and Blackberry operating systems. At the beginning of 2014 there were 1.2 million live Pingit accounts. NatWest and RBS have teamed up to launch a rival service. It is called, Pay Your Contacts. To use the service you must be a customer and download its banking app. Before you can pay other people using Mobile Banking, you will need to set them up as a payee in Digital Banking using your card reader. Once they re set up, though, you will be able to make payments using just your Mobile app. People do not need to register in advance to receive money, instead recipients are sent a text which contains a link to a secure Visa website. They then have to put in their card number and the amount into the site in order to get the cash. Clearly there could be challenges here for churches having to register a mobile phone for example, although most churches should not struggle with that. Although the Pingit system requires the app to send a payment, you can set up a mobile number and a Pingit account to receive payments through the Barclays website so people without smartphones can still receive payments. Doing it through the phone number has the attraction that payments can be exchanged without needing to share bank details with the other party. The Pingit service works on the Faster Payment Scheme, so payments are effectively instantaneous, even between Barclays and non Barclays customers, and they are free. The Pingit app now has a 'donate with Gift Aid' function, which account holders can use to make donations to charity, and to do so tax-effectively. Pingit users can make a donation by either scanning QR codes on the charity's marketing materials, or by selecting their charity from the app's business directory. They are then prompted whether they would like to give by Gift Aid, and if so to complete a declaration. The costs of the scheme are 15p per transaction, and so this is more cost effective, the larger the transaction. Be warned however, as there is an initial fee of 250. Whilst this initial fee is a considerable investment for any church, and is likely to negate the benefit for individual churches, it is hoped that over time some greater rivalry from the likes of NatWest/RBS might reduce this fee. All that would be needed within the church would be a poster with a QR code, or this could be printed on baptism or wedding service sheets, or put on small cards in the pews. 11

12 And finally (your church s website) Throughout this paper, much has been mentioned about your church s website. Your church website has enormous potential as a fundraising tool, but also as part of your outreach strategy to reach into your community. It can be like an enticing shop window and virtual doorway to draw people into faith and fellowship. However, many churches do not understand how to design a website that will do this effectively. Online fundraising can be successful on your website, but think carefully about the website before you begin to develop your fundraising facility. Some things to consider before developing your online fundraising: Are the times/venues for worship clearly displayed on the website? Where is your church is there a map on the website? Is your website reflecting a museum or a living church? Look at your photos are they of buildings or of people? Do you have reviews or comments from people who have worshipped with you? Are there video clips on your website? Does the website connect church members (or parishioners) to the Minister via sermons or messages? Is there an up to date list of events happening in your church? Is your mission statement there for all to see? Make your pages user friendly. Limit the use of graphics, animation and JavaScripts so that the pages are quick-loading. Avoid features that require website visitors to have the latest and "greatest" downloaded software, Now you can do your online fundraising.. The key to successful online fundraising is to make your page stand out. Tell people why you are fundraising and use photos or a video. Include examples of what your church could do with the money to encourage your donors to give that little bit extra. Promote your website using social media A few tips for staying safe online Think carefully before posting your personal details online, this includes photographs and phone numbers of office bearers. Do not post photographs or videos of children without their parents consent Do not post personal information about other people without their permission. Always try to think of a good password when creating accounts online, a mixture of letters and numbers is best. 12

13 For any advice or ideas, please contact: Margot Robertson: Edinburgh, West Lothian, Lothian, Melrose and Peebles, Duns, Jedburgh. Phone: Edith Scott: Annandale and Eskdale, Dumfries and Kirkcudbright, Wigtown and Stranraer, Ayr, Irvine and Kilmarnock, Ardrossan, Lanark, Greenock and Paisley, Hamilton. Phone: Stuart Sangster: Glasgow, Dumbarton, Argyll, Stirling, Lochaber. Phone: Sandra Holt: Falkirk, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, St Andrews, Dunkeld and Meigle, Perth, Dundee. Phone: Fiona Penny: Angus, Aberdeen, Kincardine and Deeside, Gordon, Buchan, Moray, Abernethy, Inverness Phone: Rev Alan Gibson: all other Presbyteries. Phone: Stewardship and Finance Department Church of Scotland 121 George Street Edinburgh EH2 4YN Tel: Scottish Charity Number SC Give.net - an example Supporter s gift Gift Aid Fees Just of donations - that s it. No set up fee. No monthly fees. No 13