Accepting Digital Donations: Don’t Pay for What You Don’t Need

When it comes to accepting digital donations there are a ton of options out there, and all of them claim to be the best for your church’s needs. Kiosk solutions, fully-branded church apps, text-to-give…the list goes on and on. How can you possibly know which option is right for your congregation?

What’s the Goal?

When you’re considering mobile and digital giving options, it’s important to ask yourself one very important question: “What is our goal?”

As we speak with churches, pastors, and ministry leaders here at Givelify every day, we’ve discovered that many are trying to achieve the same thing. They want to remove the roadblocks to giving and empower members to contribute in the ways they prefer to give.

Josh Billings once said, “Be like a postage stamp — stick to one thing until you get there.” While many companies try to sell churches on taking an “all of the above” approach to digital contributions, the churches that have the most success are those who simplify the process and make it easy to contribute through a single system.

More Options, More Money

“All-of-the-above” solutions sound great in theory, but tend to overwhelm congregants and organizations with too many options. And when people are overwhelmed, they revert back to their routine.

Additionally, these services can get very expensive for churches and organizations very quickly. Church apps with kiosk and text-to-give options can run several hundred dollars per month. That’s in addition to the fees they charge to process giving transactions.

For many of these companies, giving and contributions are secondary to what they’re really selling — a church app with features you may never use.

More Features, More Headaches

It’s easy for churches to fall into the trap of always wanting to “do more.” A church app with an online events calendar, streaming media, announcement loops, and online giving sounds like a great way to engage members while also empowering them to give. But don’t forget the question we asked earlier: “What’s the goal?”

Rather than answering that question and removing roadblocks to giving, a church app or kiosk and text-to-give options tend to create more questions. “Who will update the calendar? Will our streaming media provider work with the app? Who will create the graphics? How do we explain the text-to-give process and make it easy?”

If the goal is to empower contributors, many of the features a church app offer only serve to distract from the primary goal, while charging your organization in the process.

Giving Should Be Easy

The beauty of Givelify is that it’s designed to solve problems and answer questions — not create new ones. If you’re looking to remove the roadblocks to giving and empower contributors to support your ministry, why pay for features that don’t help you accomplish that goal?

With a beautiful, easy-to-use interface that looks and feels the same whether you’re using it through the app, on Facebook, or your church’s website, Givelify makes giving simple and elegant, with no monthly fees and without the pains of kiosk giving or text-to-give.

Break down the barriers to giving at your church. We’ll show you how.