Payments Archives - Donorbox Blog

New Feature: ACH Bank Transfer Donations

The Donorbox team is thrilled to introduce an exciting new feature for all U.S. based organizations. Our donation forms now accept ACH bank transfer (also known as eCheck) payments! In other words, your supporters can now make donations through bank transfers instead of using their credit cards or PayPal accounts.

This is particularly helpful for large donations, as credit card fees are almost three times more expensive than ACH fees. In fact, Stripe charges a 2.2% + $0.30 credit card fee for registered 501c3 nonprofits, while its ACH fee is of 0.80% capped at $5 (i.e. if you donate above $625, the fee remains at $5). In both scenarios, Donorbox charges a 0.89% transaction fee. Taking, for a example, a donation of $1,000: you would pay $13.90 in fees instead of $31.20. Whether you or your donors pay these fees – the lower they are, the better.

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This new feature is especially practical in that donors don’t have to type in their bank account and routing numbers in order to perform a bank transfer. Instead, they simply log in using their online banking credentials (username & password), making the checkout process much faster and more secure.

Continue reading New Feature: ACH Bank Transfer Donations

New Feature: Ask your donors to cover processing fees!

We are happy to announce that we have added a new feature to our donation platform! Now, organizations can ask their donors to cover the processing fees for their donations. This covers the 2.9% + 30c credit card processing fee from Stripe or Paypal (this fee can be reduced for registered nonprofits), as well as the 0.89% platform fee . As a reminder, organizations only have to pay the platform fee once they reach $1k in donations for a month. However, for simplification purposes, this option will include the 0.89% no matter the amount raised.

Processing fees can quickly add up for nonprofits, and no one wants to pay to receive donations (that’s why you chose to use Donorbox, the cheapest donation platform out there, in the first place). However, as you can see below, your donor would only have to pay an extra $4.09 for a donation of $100. This option thus only slightly increases their donation amount, all the while doing you a huge favor.

cover fees form

Of course, this is optional for both you and your donors: you do not have to include this option on your form, and if your donors would rather not pay these fees, they don’t have to.

cover fees option

6 Reasons Why Donorbox is a Better Donation System than Paypal

Many of you may have been wondering what differences there are between the Donorbox and PayPal donation forms. In fact, while PayPal’s donation function may seem similar to Donorbox in some ways, we want to show you how Donorbox better caters to your non-profit’s needs. Continue reading 6 Reasons Why Donorbox is a Better Donation System than Paypal

PayPal Donations is Here

PayPal is the grandfather of internet payments system and quite an interesting one. Even though its checkout process could be faster, many donors are used to it. As as result, there are over 157 million PayPal users with their payment info conveniently saved on there. At DonorBox, we want donors to use using whatever payment method they feel most comfortable in. Thus, we are excited to have the option to accept PayPal donations.

To activate PayPal, simply enter your PayPal email under your organization account settings.

Your donation data will still be collected just like a regular card donation.

Upcoming

Per popular request, we will be working on the ability to customize your email receipts. We are also looking at ways to cut transaction fees dramatically using direct bank transfers as an additional donation method.

If you have any questions or issues please don’t hesitate to contact us at support [at] donorbox.org

PS. We’re hip enough to be on Twitter (@donorbox). Hollar at us anytime.

On Fraud Prevention

Unfortunately, fraud is inevitable in online payments. It is less of a problem with donations, but chances are it may happen. Scammers use donation pages to test stolen credit cards. Oftentimes, the donation will have a gibberish email (eg. *protected email*) and have a low dollar amount ($0.50 – $1). If you see suspicious donation from unknown sources, don’t worry, just take the following steps.

1. Try to email the suspicious donor. If the email bounced or they don’t respond, REFUND the donation. You may get hit with a $15 chargeback fee if you do not refund the transaction within 1-2 weeks. If the donation email or name is clearly fake, go ahead and refund the transaction right away.

2. If your donors are primarily in the USA, we would highly recommend turning on the billing zip code verification under your account settings. If your donors are mostly outside of the USA, it would be better not to turn on billing postal code verification. This is because cards outside of the US may not have their postal code info included.

3. We recently added a new a feature in the campaign editor to enforce a minimum donation amount. We recommend setting that to ~ $3. A higher charge amount will deter scammers from testing stolen cards.