Now is the time for Online Giving.

For close to twenty years, parishes have found online giving to be a useful tool to supplement their Offertory Collection.  Forward thinking parishes employed this tool to safeguard against the disruption to the weekly collection due to illness, vacations, and inclement weather.  Today we see the value of using online giving because of Covid-19.

This new pandemic presents a real challenge to our primary source of collections.  For now and into the foreseeable future, passing the basket is not a viable option to sustain our parish life.  Now is the time to focus your efforts on adopting and/or growing your online giving presence.

This is a time for our parishes to reconsider how to engage parishioners to more easily and more consistently give.  Rather than rely on the capricious nature of the weekly collection, we can ask our parishioners to more deeply reflect on their level of support.  What easier way to respond to that call than by clicking on a link on your parish website to sign up for online giving.  It is time for a paradigm shift in our financial support for Parish life.

If you do not yet have a program in place, it is critical to incorporate a solution at the parish level.  There are many well established programs that provide online giving.   Here are some things you will want to consider when evaluating the various companies:

Is the provider or the parish the merchant of record?  If the parish is the merchant of record, staff will need to take an annual PCI compliance test.

Does the provider equip you with ongoing promotional materials to encourage participation?

Does the provider fully support the parish with customer service?

Does the parish receive weekly reporting that is easy to reconcile with bank deposits?

Is the platform robust and does it offer other payment avenues such as Religious Education and fundraising?

What are the fees and is there a long-term agreement?

 

I chose Parish Giving as my provider because…