Although it’s possible to collect donations directly through Stripe and PayPal, there are several advantages to adding a fundraising platform like Donorbox to your toolkit. From setting up recurring gifts to enabling donors to cover fees - and beyond - this article covers the many reasons why pairing Donorbox with Stripe or PayPal will boost your fundraising.
You already have a great payment processor – why do you need a fundraising platform as well?
The short answer is that fundraising platforms like Donorbox have more features designed specifically for nonprofits when compared to even the best payment processors.
In this article, we’ll cover why pairing Donorbox with Stripe or PayPal will help you grow your organization through online fundraising features such as recurring giving, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer, and more. We’ll also share how you can connect your Stripe or PayPal accounts with Donorbox so that you can start taking advantage of these incredible features today.
Stripe and PayPal are two of the top payment processing platforms on the market. They interact directly and securely with your donors’ financial institutions, allowing you to confidently accept online transactions. But even they have limitations when it comes to effective online fundraising!
On the flip side, fundraising platforms like Donorbox don’t always have the capability to process payments within their own system. Instead, they integrate with these powerful payment processors – like Stripe and PayPal – so that they can focus on building the tools you need to successfully raise funds in a digital environment.
That’s why pairing Donorbox with Stripe or PayPal is not only recommended – it’s a must. While select donor data is securely stored within Donorbox, we never hold funds for any period of time. All donations get processed directly via Stripe and PayPal. In turn, Stripe and PayPal’s platforms, while great at processing payments, are simply not geared toward nonprofits.
Integrating Donorbox with Stripe or PayPal (or both!) creates a powerful donation system that enables you to increase donations, manage your donors, improve donor engagement, and much more.
That’s because Donorbox offers all of the features below – many of which are not available (or are only available on a limited basis) through PayPal or Stripe alone.
Because Donorbox is designed and built for nonprofits, you can rest assured that our online forms are created with your donors and their giving experience in mind.
You can customize your embeddable (or pop-up!) Donorbox donation form’s colors, buttons, and more to fit seamlessly into your website and branding. Or, you can create an entire donation page – mobile-optimized and hosted for free on our SSL-enabled servers – that features your logo, images, impact stories, and more.
Within your forms, you can also ask up to 10 custom questions, the answers to which will be recorded in our donor database (more on that later). You can also include various ask amounts, impact details, tribute gift options, designated fund selections, and more.
Plus, Donorbox offers unique tools that will take your fundraising forms and pages to the next level, such as a virtual donor wall and fundraising goal thermometers.
Here’s an example of an embedded Donobox donation form in action on Upward Scholars’ website.
Build my own fundraising campaign
One of the best ways to secure consistent and reliable income for your organization is through a recurring donation program. Making it simple to set up and manage recurring gifts in your online donation form is an important piece of a successful recurring giving strategy.
Donorbox enables you to add up to four recurring donation intervals (choose from daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually) to your donation form, plus makes it easy for donors to log in to their donor portal to change their recurring donation plan at any time.
PayPal only supports monthly donations and, while Stripe does allow for daily, weekly, monthly, and annual billing frequency, it is not designed specifically for a giving program. In addition, neither system makes it as quick to set up and manage recurring donations as is possible through Donorbox.
Empower donors to ensure that 100% of their gift goes directly to serving your mission by giving them the option to cover the processing fee on their donations.
With a flip of a switch on the backend in Donorbox, you can add the option for donors to cover fees to your donation form. The fee is then simply added to the transaction total, so only one donation is processed.
Acknowledging each and every donation is critical when it comes to engaging with donors and solidifying long-term relationships. While sending a personalized thank-you letter is ideal, it is also important that you send an automated email receipt for every donation made through your form.
Unlike Stripe and PayPal, Donorbox enables you to customize your receipt emails. Not only do these receipts include all required information for tax purposes, but you can also add thank-you notes, embed impactful images, and more. In addition, you may use Donorbox to send customized year-end tax receipt emails.
All donor and donation data is securely stored in the Donorbox database, easily accessible within your organization’s account. Here, you can segment donors, get alerts for important moments, add communication notes, update donor profiles, and much more. We also offer Donor Reporting Templates for Donor Overview, New Donor, and LYBUNT reports to save you time and help you find critical donor information.
Stripe and PayPal do not offer any type of donor management system at this time.
Through our partnership with Double the Donation, we make it possible to add a donation matching widget to your Donorbox donation form. This enables donors to check if their employers are willing to match their donations, often doubling or even tripling the total gift.
Donors also receive all details needed to complete the process on their end directly from Donorbox, making the process as hassle-free as possible for the nonprofits themselves.
Offering a variety of giving options opens your nonprofit up to more types of donors. Crypto and stock giving is picking up in popularity due to the numerous benefits for donors and nonprofits alike. Our partnership with The Giving Block makes accepting crypto and stock donations through your online giving form easy for you and your donors.
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation has added this integration to their Donorbox donation form – check it out in the example below.
Another way to bring in reliable income for your nonprofit is to start a membership program. With Donorbox’s Memberships tool, you can easily set up unlimited membership tiers for monthly or annual membership campaigns.
Managing memberships online isn’t possible with Stripe or PayPal alone, but Donorbox makes it easy to attract, engage, and add members to your program.
Through peer-to-peer fundraising, you can turn your supporters into advocates for your mission, broadening your reach and bringing in new donors. With Donorbox Peer-to-Peer, simply create your organization’s campaign, and then invite supporters to build their own fundraising pages to share with friends and family.
While this is a popular and effective tool in Donorbox’s set of offerings, it is not available through Stripe or PayPal.
Donorbox also offers the capability to sell and manage tickets online through our Donorbox Events feature. Through Donorbox Events, you can set ticket limits and deadlines, create promo codes, ask donors to cover fees, request donations, and much more. Plus, the tool does all the tax work! Simply enter the fair market value of your ticket and the form will generate the tax-deductible value for you.
PayPal and Stripe do not offer event ticketing software of their own. Pairing Stripe with Donorbox Events, however, makes it possible to accept global payment methods. Depending on your market, these include SEPA, Bacs Direct Debit, Afterpay, Klarna, and more.
Making it easy for donors to give on-site, whether at your location or during a fundraising event, can make the difference between missing and capturing vital donations. Donorbox provides several solutions for on-site and on-the-go fundraising, including Text-to-Give and Donorbox Live™ Kiosk.
With Text-to-Give, donors simply send your campaign ID or keyword to a designated number in order to receive a link to your secure giving form sent straight to their phone. You can add the Donorbox Live™ Kiosk app to any tablet and pair it with a card reader to create your own giving kiosk, where donors can give using their cards or smart devices in just a few taps.
While PayPal and Stripe both offer card reader options, neither is designed for nonprofit fundraising. Donorbox Live™ Kiosk actually pairs with Stripe’s card readers, giving you one more reason to connect these two incredible platforms.
Looking for more details about how Stripe stacks up against Donorbox? Check out this comparison chart. You can also read this blog for more information.
How does PayPal as a stand-alone compare to Donorbox? Take a look at this comparison chart and read this article for more details.
Donorbox offers three pricing plans to fit your needs. The Standard Plan is free for all users and offers a 1.75% platform fee on most of our tools. Our Pro Plan features a 1.5% platform fee for most features and a 2% platform fee for Events, Text-to-Give, and Peer-to-Peer. Premium users also access a 1.5% platform fee for most products and a 2% platform fee for Events and Peer-to-Peer, plus they receive a custom plan and corresponding monthly fee to fit their unique needs.
Stripe offers a discounted rate for qualifying nonprofits at 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction. PayPal’s nonprofit payment processing fee is 1.99% +$0.49 per donation.
Pairing Donorbox with Stripe or PayPal is easy to do. You also don’t have to pick between the two payment processors. Integrate both with your Donorbox account to expand your giving options even further!
First, make sure you have an active Donorbox org account as well as an account with Stripe and/or PayPal.
Then, log in to your Donorbox org account and head to the Payment Processors page – find it under “Account” in the left-hand navigation.
To connect with Stripe, either click “Create Your Stripe Account” or “Already have a Stripe account?” Then, follow the instructions provided by Stripe. Once complete, you’ll be redirected back to your Donorbox dashboard!
If you’d like to connect with a PayPal business account, enter your email address in the PayPal field. Click “Update” and you’ll be set!
For a more detailed guide on getting started with Donorbox, including pairing Donorbox with Stripe or PayPal, check out this article. More of a visual learner? The video below walks you through each of the necessary steps to connect Stripe and PayPal to Donorbox.
It’s true that you can accept donations via a payment processor such as Stripe or PayPal. Integrating these systems with a fundraising platform like Donorbox, however, is the ideal solution if you’re looking to boost fundraising.
That’s because Donorbox, unlike Stripe and PayPal, is designed specifically for nonprofits and their supporters. Our tools and features, including donation pages, Peer-to-Peer fundraising, event ticketing, Text-to-Give, and more, are crafted to help you help others.
Pairing Donorbox with Stripe or PayPal is the best of both worlds. This combination of an industry-leading fundraising platform plus top-of-the-line payment processors ensures you bring in donations both quickly and securely.
Learn more about Donorbox on our website and check out The Nonprofit Blog for more fundraising tips, how-to guides, and actionable advice.
Kara has several years of experience in communications and marketing for nonprofit organizations. Her love for serving others began while fundraising for and attending mission trips. She then worked with multiple local nonprofits through various marketing agencies and volunteer opportunities before becoming a communications manager at Variety the Children's Charity of St. Louis for more than four years. Kara now specializes in writing and enjoys sharing her experiences and knowledge with others on this platform.
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Kara Schmid