you expect only a few donations,
and price is a key concern
If you are just looking to get your feet wet with
an online donation program, a tool that charges
minimal fees when you don’t get any donations
might make sense
Click and Pledge ( www.clickandpledge.com )
Offering reasonable functionality at very
affordable prices, Click and Pledge could be a
good choice, especially for organizations who
only expect a few donations. The donation form
can be integrated somewhat with the look of
your website. The tool also has strong
international support. They charge a $5 monthly
fee, plus 4.5% and $0.35 of each donation.
Network for Good Basic
DonateNow ( www.networkforgood.org )
Network for Good is a low-cost but completely
un-customizable tool that could be a good choice
for organizations interested in testing an online
donation program. The extensive Network for
Good branding gives the donor little doubt that
they have left the organization’s website to make
a donation on the Network for Good website.
The only charge is a 4.75% transaction fee.
Inexpensive, but not focused on
donations
There’s several tools that offer very attractive
prices – but they might be less attractive to your
donors.
PayPal Donations (
https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/accept-payments-online
With no way to customize the look of or the
fields on the donation form, PayPal’s user
experience is unmistakably PayPal. People’s
reaction to PayPal vary widely – it’s widely
known and trusted by tech-savvy donors, but
often (wrongly) associated with fraud in less
tech-savvy donors’ minds. However, it’s one of
the cheapest ways to take donations. While
donors used to have to create a PayPal account
to donate, that’s no longer true – they can
simply use a credit card as a donor most
typically would expect
Google Checkout ( checkout.google.com )
Google offers their Google Checkout service for
free to nonprofits they’ve approved for a Google
Grant (their non-competitive grants
www.google.com/grants/ for Google Ads and
other things). This means that you literally pay
nothing, including transaction fees – which is a
hard price to beat. However, the flow isn’t
optimized for donations – it forces the user to
create a Google Account, and to associate a
credit card with their Google Account, before
they can get on with actually making a donation.
It’s a flow that may be confusing to less tech-
savvy donors – and if people don’t donate, it
doesn’t matter how free it is.
Amazon Payments ( https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business/asp/
donations)
Similar to Google Checkout, Amazon offers a
payment tool optimized for e-commerce rather
than donations… but at 1.9% +$0.30 per
transaction, it’s also very inexpensive. Like
Google Checkout, donors need to sign in to
Amazon and setup their credit card before they
can fill out the donation form. This may confuse
donors without an Amazon account, but Amazon
is widely used enough that many of your donors
may already have one.
Best values for all around good tools
There are a number of tools that offer solid
features and a lot of customization at affordable
rates. Some of the most widely used ones
include:
Network for Good Custom
DonateNow ( www.networkforgood.org )
This, the second of Network for Good’s donate
options, is entirely different from the first. It’s an
affordable option for organizations that don’t
need complex customizations or their own
merchant account. Their clean and professional
donation form can be seamlessly integrated into
each organization’s website. It’s $30 per month,
and 3% per donation.
GiftTool ( www.gifttool.com )
GiftTool is a solid choice for middle-of-the-road
needs, particularly for organizations that need to
support events or product sales as well as
donations. They offer complete integration of
their clean and user-friendly donation form into
your website. As a Canadian company, they offer
additional receipt and language options to
support Canadian organizations. They charge a
flat rate – currently $1.23 – per credit card
donation, making them attractive to those who
receive large donations, but less so to those who
expect a lot of little ones. You can use their
merchant account or your own.
QGiv ( www.qgiv.com )
QGiv provides online donation (as well as event
registration) functionality that is fully integrated
into your site, with a lot of features including
tributes and recurring donations. You need a
merchant account, but they set it up for you.
It’s $20 per month, with 3.95% plus $0.25
charged per transaction.
check www.google.com for more donation api
source: www.idealware.org/tips/online-donations