Why Online Fundraising?
Online fundraising has become the bread and butter for nonprofit organizations around the world. It garners millions in charitable giving for the nonprofit industry every year.
Although traditional charitable giving still deserves a lot of attention, overall revenue from online fundraising grew by 23% in 2017 and has seen consistent year over year growth. (Nonprofit Source) Nonprofits received an average of 28% more online gifts in 2017 than 2016. In 2017, 21% of online donations were made on a mobile device.
Online fundraising is easy and accessible and keeps your donors’ information secure. It also lets your nonprofit capture more donor information, manage your donations more easily, increases your brand awareness, and raise funds cost-effectively.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that more and more nonprofits are looking to take their online fundraising a step further.
There’s a lot to successful online fundraising. From finding the right online donation software to creating a compelling donation page – the process can be challenging for any nonprofit. Whether your nonprofit is just starting out or is already established, or somewhere in between, online fundraising is becoming the norm.
Donations and Processing Fees
It’s very important to have a powerful and efficient online donation system if your organization wants to get the most out of online fundraising. While Donorbox is one of the most affordable solutions on the market, processing fees can still quickly add up for nonprofits.
Since it’s not possible to receive online donations without using payment gateways, processing fees are a necessary evil if you want to receive online donations.
As a reminder, organizations only have to pay the Donorbox platform fee once they reach $1k in donations within a month. Donorbox charges a small platform transaction fee of 1.5% for the entire month’s donations. Donorbox invoices and charges your billing card at the beginning of the next month if any fees are incurred during the month.
The Donorbox platform fee of 1.5% is much lower than other donation platforms.
Ask Your Donors to Cover Processing Fees
To allow your nonprofit to fully reap the benefits of online fundraising, Donorbox lets your organization ask your 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 1.5% Donorbox platform fee.
This is a great way for your nonprofit to receive the full amount of a donation, which increases your revenue, and in return helps you advance your mission.
Here’s an example of how much your nonprofit organization could save in a month by simply asking your donors to cover the processing fees. We’ve included a variety of funds benchmarks:
| Funds Raised in a Month | Money Saved in a Month |
| $10,000/mo | $440.30 |
| $50,000/mo | $2200.30 |
| $100,000/mo | $4400.30 |
| $500,000/mo | $22000.30 |
| $1M/mo | $44000.30 |
Here’s the step-by-step guide on how to ask your donors to cover the fees.
Why Ask Your Donors For Help
By covering the processing fees your donors can go the extra mile for your nonprofit organization and ensure that the entirety of their intended donation goes to your nonprofit.
Many donors aren’t aware that there are fees associated with processing their donations, and most donors want their money to be used in the best way possible. And it’s been shown that, if they know that and are given the option, donors will cover the processing fees. This is true especially since covering the processing fees doesn’t significantly impact their donation amount. For example, a donor giving a $100 donation would only have to pay $4.70 more to cover processing fees.
Once donors tick the checkbox, the additional amount is added automatically to their total. This does not remove or change the fees. Instead, you are asking the donor to give an additional amount so that if their intention is to give you $100, they’ll give $104.70 so that you still get $100 instead of $95.30.