Rethinking your church donation box is an important step in modernizing your church giving. Church donation boxes have begun to get outdated – for your church as well as visitors! People don’t carry cash anymore and the younger members would rather give through mobile. Church giving through a donation box can only thrive in modern…
Rethinking your church donation box is an important step in modernizing your church giving.
Church donation boxes have begun to get outdated – for your church as well as visitors! People don’t carry cash anymore and the younger members would rather give through mobile.
Church giving through a donation box can only thrive in modern times when you bring it up to speed. This article will teach you six innovative ways to make that happen!
Let’s see what we’ll cover –
A church donation box, or church offering box, is a box located somewhere in a church where congregants are encouraged to deposit their spare change.
Historically, this spare change has been used to help the poor, but it can be used for other purposes as well. The church donation box is typically separate from weekly tithing.
Although church donation box is the most common name for it now, the box has historically had many other names. You might know it as –
Whatever you call it, there are many reasons why modern churches are finding it difficult to get donations through a traditional church donation box. Let’s go through them.
However hard it may be to accept, the fact is that traditional church donation boxes don’t cater to your fundraising needs anymore. Here are 4 reasons why –
Modernize your church donation box to include new-age, convenient, and fast methods of online giving. When churches let people give online, they boost donations by 32%.
Trusted by thousands of churches, Donorbox offers a suite of tools to make collecting online donations a breeze for you and your congregants. Our powerful products are designed to elevate the giving experience and ensure effective fundraising. Here’s a glimpse into that –
Boost Church Giving With Donorbox!
The quickest way to modernize your church donation box? Turn it into a donation kiosk!
A donation kiosk is a way to collect in-person donations with cards or digital wallets.
You’ll need:
Donorbox recently released an iOS and Android app – called Donorbox Live™ Kiosk – that you can use to accept cashless donations through secure and speedy transactions. Your donors can pay with swift taps or swipes using a variety of credit cards, smart watches, or smartphones.
Donorbox Live™ Kiosk is also very simple to use – just create an account on Donorbox and connect to Stripe. Set your location. Then, create a campaign and add suggested ask amounts. Next, add this card reader app to your tablet, connect the card reader device, and start accepting donations for your church!
Donorbox Live™ Kiosk - Learn More!
Another great option to capture more in-person donations with a modern church donation box is to feature text-to-give during your sermons and around your church.
Text-to-give for churches utilizes the one thing your congregants are almost certain to have in their pockets – their smartphone. Betting on that rather than some spare change means more donations for your church donation box.
Donorbox Text-to-Give is easy to use. Simply share your unique campaign ID and the text-to-give phone number with your congregants. Once they text that number with your ID, they’ll receive a link to your mobile-friendly donation page to complete the donation.
Once they’ve given, repeating their donations will be even easier – no going to the donation page again! See how it looks on their end –
Pro tip: Make a unique campaign page for your church donation box and use that for text-to-give. This way, you can track how effective your fundraising efforts are and keep those funds separate from your general tithing.
QR codes became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic as a contactless way to get information. But studies show they aren’t going anywhere – in fact, they’re getting more popular!
By 2025, the number of smartphone users scanning QR codes regularly will rise to 99.5 million. That’s up from 83.4 million in 2023.
Donorbox automatically generates a free QR code for every campaign you create. You can simply download the code and paste it across your church. Donorbox also lets you customize the code to include a different link or change the size or download format.
Pro tip: Make this QR code stand out next to your traditional donation box. This will help congregants know that even if they don’t have spare change in their pockets, they can still easily give to your church’s efforts.
One thing about old-school church donation boxes: it was quick to pull change out of your pockets and donate it.
The trick to innovating your donation box for modern times is to make the giving process quicker. Your online donation platform should make this happen naturally!
Donorbox makes giving 4 times faster for your donors with Donorbox UltraSwift ™ Pay – by including digital wallets. And eliminating the need for donors to input their personal information. No worries – we’ll still get their details from their chosen wallets and store them in the Donorbox database. This method also helps reduce your donor drop-off rates!
Check out this live example from the Holy Myrrhbearers Orthodox Christian Church – their donation form allows supporters to quickly give through PayPal and also choose other payment methods as per their convenience!
Make Giving Super Fast - Sign Up Now!
Your church congregants would love the convenience of quickly repeating their donations every time they come to your church. If you instead ask them to fill out a donation form every time, they might decide not to.
With Donorbox, this becomes a breeze! Your church gets the option to let people QuickDonate. This feature enables your congregants to opt to save their payment information on your donation form. Next time they want to give, they can log in to their Donorbox donor account and simply tap a few times to make a donation to your church.
Take a minute to watch this video to empower your congregation with Donorbox QuickDonate –
One step in modernizing your church donation box might simply be making your goals more specific. Instead of generally helping the poor, is there a specific action you can take in your community?
Once you have that action in mind, build a Donorbox crowdfunding campaign for your church, outlining your goal. Donorbox Crowdfunding is packed with storytelling and shareability potential. You can post updates, let visitors subscribe to campaign updates, send update emails to donors and subscribers, highlight donations on a virtual donor wall, and more.
Now use text-to-give or QR code or a giving kiosk at your church to easily direct congregants to give toward that goal.
This is a great way to build momentum and encourage your congregation to give to a specific fund to help increase your impact in the community!
Look at this crowdfunding campaign on Donorbox, started by the Pioneers Church to raise funds for building a new church in the city.
Start a Crowdfunding Campaign!
More and more churches are finding that it’s time to modernize. Outdated church fundraising techniques like the church donation box are becoming less popular. Innovative, easy, and quicker online methods are the future!
If you’re ready to embrace the future, Donorbox can help you bring your church up to speed with online giving, event ticketing, a card reader app, memberships, and more. Learn about our simple yet powerful fundraising products on the website.
Never miss out on a donation because someone doesn’t have cash again – Sign up to raise more for your church with Donorbox!
Read insightful church fundraising guides and articles on the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. We also have free templates and other resources over there to help your fundraising efforts. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a curated list of the best Donorbox resources in your inbox every month.
Lindsey spent years wearing many hats in the nonprofit world. Whether she was helping arts nonprofits with their messaging and content, planning a fundraising gala, writing an NEA grant proposal, or running a membership program with over 400 members, she learned how to navigate – and appreciate! – the fast-paced world of fundraising. Now, she loves sharing those hard-earned lessons with the Donorbox community.
Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive the latest blogs, news, and more in your inbox.
Lindsey Baker Bower