Online tithing is already a very popular option for congregants who don't carry cash – and it's only going to get more popular. In this article, we’ll share why tithing is important, reasons why your church should encourage people to give online, different ways to accept online tithing, and affordable tools to use.
Where can I pay my tithes? Many churchgoers have this question during the age of Covid and technological improvements. Churches have more options than ever to collect online tithes from their members. Online tithing is convenient for churchgoers and the administration, and thanks to online donation tools, members have their choice in how they’ll give.
In this article, we’ll share why tithing is important, reasons why your church should encourage people to give online, different ways to accept online tithing, and affordable tools your church can use.
Tithing has a historical and biblical basis. “Tithe” in Hebrew means tenth. Many Christians and Jewish followers tithe 10% of their income to their local church. Members follow this practice because of its importance and simplicity. Promising one-tenth of your income is still affordable for many and allows people to play a solid role in their community and faith.
Since most people still work as an employee, they tend to tithe after receiving their bi-weekly paychecks. Followers that attend church weekly, will give to the church when the offering plate is passed. Churches can add up these gifts and put the funds to work right away. Churches that keep track of their members can plan to receive a specific amount each week.
Metropolitan Community Churches uses the below fundraising page on Donorbox to accept online tithing from the community. They’ve added a donation designation dropdown to the donation form to enable donors to choose if the one-time/recurring donation should go toward tithing.
With fewer people regularly attending services, churches are looking for different ways to collect tithes from their members. There are several reasons churches need and want tithes, and must do whatever they can to make it easy for their followers to continue this practice.
The Covid pandemic made attending church difficult for many. Fewer people than ever regularly attend every Sunday. More people are streaming services and only connect with their church online.
Churches miss out on gifts from several populations if they don’t offer the option to tithe online. Gifts from senior citizens confined to their homes, service personnel, and college students are all dependable supporters churches must accommodate through online tithing.
Most people don’t carry cash around anymore. Sunday service offering plates are becoming lighter and lighter, and churches that don’t give members an online option to give will see a significant drop in their collections. Members still feel a responsibility to tithe, but may start to look elsewhere for places to give.
Another benefit to offering online tithing is the increase in gifts received. Online donations are growing in popularity. People who donate online tend to give larger amounts than those who give cash and are more likely to repeat their donations.
60% of people in the US want to give to their church online. And it is said that an American makes an average donation of $17/week to their local place of worship. This can be a significant amount when considered on a monthly basis and can even be increased further by educating people on the possible impacts of their regular tithing to a church.
Now that we’ve addressed why churches must collect online tithes, it’s time to talk about how. We’ve included the 6 best ways your church can offer online tithing for members of all ages.
Church memberships have always been a vital part of an individual’s service to God. Members choose a church based on location, leadership, volunteer opportunities, and more. Membership also comes with the added benefit of taking a leadership role and making a difference in how things get done.
Churches that promote membership, can benefit from more volunteers, deeper connections with their followers, and donors who are more likely to regularly give.
Churches can set up their membership program online and offer an easier way for members to give. Members can give weekly, monthly, or quarterly with a click of a button and receive updates on how their gifts make a difference in the church and their community.
Donorbox Memberships helps nonprofits and churches set up membership campaigns online and add unlimited membership tiers. You can either embed the membership form on your website or use the Donorbox-hosted membership campaign page. Either way, your members will be glad to have a convenient way to make online tithes.
Check out this membership campaign example from The Kabogoza Gospel Ministry. One of their membership tiers includes the tithing option. A monthly/annual membership form of this kind will encourage your members to regularly support your church through online tithing.
Members are not the only followers who want to give regularly to your church. By adding a recurring donation option to your online donation page, your church can educate all church attendees on ways they can support your organization.
Online donation tools that offer a quick and free sign-up process, flexible options, and multiple payment options will entice more people to give.
Donorbox Recurring Donations is free to start and there are no monthly contracts either. You can easily set up a recurring donation form and embed it on your website. You can also use the Donorbox-hosted fundraising page along with the form to accept online tithes.
Here’s an example to help you understand better. Along with suggested donation amounts, there’s also a custom amount field to help donors tithe to their liking.
Those followers who aren’t ready to sign up as members or recurring donors will still appreciate how easy it is to give to your church online. As we said, fewer people have cash so when someone visits your church, you must give them another easier way to support your church.
With online fundraising tools like Donorbox, churches can create on-brand, customizable donation pages and forms with custom amount fields where people can fill in their desired tithing amount.
Churches can also use these donation pages during online campaigns. After all, since most people don’t attend every Sunday church service, they may forget their financial obligations to your church. Online campaigns allow churches to use videos, images, and stories to show how tithes make a difference in the church and people’s lives.
Churches that collect their followers’ emails and connect with members on social media can reach out when unexpected costs come up or local and national events encourage more people to act.
Spirit Embassy The Good News Church uses the below Donorbox-hosted donation page to collect online tithes. As you can see, they’ve not added any suggested amounts to the form. They’ve left it open to the donors to decide how much they’d want to tithe.
However, it is advisable to mention the possible impacts that the desired tithing amounts will have in the description (if not on the form) of the online campaign. This inspires people to give more than they otherwise would.
Another quick and easy way attendees can give during Sunday services is with text-to-give. These days, everyone has a smartphone so why not take advantage of its popularity by asking people to text their tithes? Instead of taking time out of your service to pass an offering plate, you can add a note to a flyer or mention it during morning announcements.
Donorbox Text-to-Give lets churches enable this option on the dashboard and receive a unique campaign code for their online tithing. This code along with a texting number needs to be shared with your attendees. They can text the code to the number to get started. Donorbox will send them a link to the mobile-friendly online tithing page where they can make a donation.
Repeating the donation is even easier with Donorbox. Your attendees just need to send a simple keyword to the same number and confirm that they want to give the same amount (as shown below).
With Donorbox, you also get a shortcode plan that gives you a shorter number (easier to remember and type in) and a custom keyword for your campaign. This makes the text-to-give process easier for donors.
Followers can give with their mobile phones in several ways, and mobile tithing is quickly becoming a popular tool for younger church-go-ers. Smartphones give people more options than ever before and tools like Venmo, Apple Pay, PayPal, etc. have made mobile payments so common that people do it without a second thought.
Churches that want to take it a step farther can also create their own app to share sermons and notes, bible verses, and collect donations from their followers. These mobile giving tools can help your church raise funds during Sunday services, with online campaigns, and during community events.
People from all over your community may attend your church’s picnic, fair, concert, or other activity without knowing anything about your mission. Digital wallet options let these individuals quickly make a donation to your church.
Donorbox UltraSwift™ Pay is the fastest way to let your supporters tithe online. It gives you a quick donation form (eliminating the need of inputting personal details) where donors select the tithing amount and quickly make the payment with digital wallets like Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
This final option can be used for online tithing at your church. Churches can set up a table or kiosk at the entrance where people can give through a PC or a tablet. This digital equipment should easily take people to the online tithing page you’ve created and keep the steps quick and simple for them to give.
You can also use this kiosk to share informational flyers and updates on missionary work and programs in your church. It’s best to have a person at this table at all times to answer any questions donors may have or for any help with making donations.
Online tithing can greatly benefit churches of all sizes, but without the right tool, you’ll have difficulty implementing many of these features.
Donorbox gives churches an affordable option to collect online offerings and tithes, run fundraising campaigns and events, and entice supporters to become members of your church. Churches can create customized forms and campaigns and collect one-time and recurring gifts with text-to-give, peer-to-peer, and crowdfunding campaigns.
Donorbox is one of the most affordable online processors out there. It is free to start and has no contracts and no monthly fees. The platform fee for the Standard plan starts at 1.75% and there’s an additional processing fee of Stripe/PayPal. But they can ask donors to cover these fees. Most donors love to have this option.
Donorbox also offers an event-ticketing feature that allows churches to sell tickets for just a 2.95% platform fee (for the Standard plan). Donorbox is also simple and great for your online membership campaigns, at just a 2.95% platform fee.
And the best part is that you can reduce the platform fee of 1.75% or 2.95% down to a flat rate of 1.5% when you upgrade to our higher plans. Learn more here.
The online donation tools is not the only way Donorbox can help your church raise funds. Our donor management system lets you collect and store information on all your donors. Churches can track communications with these donors and add notes and get moments notifications when their actions are significant.
Donors that sign up to give recurring gifts can manage their own accounts and update, pause, resume, or stop donations at any time. With Donorbox’s QuickDonate feature, your church donors can easily repeat a donation on the go. It can be done from their donor accounts on Donorbox by simply clicking a couple of buttons.
This quick video will show you how Donorbox is helping thousands of churches collect easy tithes and offerings online through its simple and effective features.
Churches can also sign up with online donation tools created specifically for churches. Tithe.ly offers six ways church members can give, including a free church giving app, check scanning, bulk gift entry, and a giving kiosk.
Tithe.ly also offers free sign-up, no monthly fee, or contract services. But their fees are a little higher at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for everything.
Donors can cover all fees and also give to their church through:
Finally, churches that use Tithe.ly can easily create their own website. Tithe.ly makes it easy for churches to choose a template and add content. There is also no contract and churches can cancel their website at any time.
Easy Tithe is another online donation platform that caters to churches and other religious organizations. Similar to Tithe.ly, they offer:
This donation tool also focuses on ways to make tithe collection easier for church administration. Easy Tithe allows church admins to create geographical reports, track new donors, and view the average gift amounts of each donor type. Churches can run and customize reports of all donor types to best meet church needs.
Easy Tithe’s MinistryOne church app has a dashboard that shows data from all funding sources. This program works with a church’s existing software and lets churches collect funds from multiple locations.
Easy Tithe is more costly than the other two on this list. The lowest monthly program is $19 a month (plus a 3% processing and $0.39 transaction fee). The pricing goes up to $99 for higher plans.
Tithing is a vital part of every follower’s faith and a crucial revenue source for churches. Christian and Jewish followers have historically given their ten percent in person during Saturday and Sunday services. But the current technological environment has made it easier and more essential for churches to move online.
Online tithing software like Donorbox, Tithe.ly, and Easy Tithe offer several ways for a donor to tithe and make it easy for church administration to collect and track these gifts.
Know more about Donorbox and its features on the website. 80,000+ organizations including churches are using our tools to boost donations and improve donor relationships. Donorbox also integrates with a number of platforms to give you advanced options for donor management, communications, matching donations, automation, and more.
If you wish to take your church fundraising to the next level, check out Donorbox Premium. Expert fundraising coaches will help you navigate through challenges to reach your full donation potential. You’ll also have access to an account ambassador, a team of adept techies, and high-powered tools. Pricing is personalized for each organization. Book a demo today!
Read more church fundraising blogs and discover free resources including checklists and templates on the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a list of insightful blogs, guides, podcast episodes, webinars, and more in your inbox every month.
Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive the latest blogs, news, and more in your inbox.
Kristine Ensor