Online Donations through the Church Website

Providing the convenience of online donations is rapidly growing in popularity among churches and non-profit organizations. An unprecedented amount of online donations, in an unprecedented amount of time, was recorded through the websites of churches and non-profit organizations during recent catastrophes like the 2004 tsunami and hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Some non-profits reported receiving more online donations in a single day than they had in the entire previous year. Without online donations that would never have been possible. Additionally, regularly scheduled online donations through the church's website lowers administrative costs and levels out the summer-time giving lull.

Fellowship One WebLink

Fellowship One WebLink extends finance management further by allowing attendees to create donation and tithing schedules online via the church website. Each schedule can be configured as a one-time gift or a recurring donation and can be fulfilled by a variety of different credit / debit card types or bank draft.

Regularly scheduled online donations through the church's website lowers administrative costs and levels out the summer-time giving lull.

Online giving offers a number advantages to churches such as:

• Convenience - Members are already familiar with leveraging the Internet to make financial transactions such as buying a book or a gift. Now the church can offer that same convenience through their church website.
• Consistency - Too often members forget to catch-up on their giving and tithing if they have missed the church service due to an illness, vacation, etc. Churches using online donations have found that their giving valleys, especially in the summer time, have been leveled out through the consistency provided with automated, regularly occurring, online giving processes.
• Control - Minimizes the need for a church attendee to call the church office to research a specific donation. By providing a "self service" feature that displays a person's giving history, donors can view both scheduled online giving and any other donations that was done through the traditional offering process.
• Complements - Online donations does not replace traditional methods of giving, such as passing an offering plate, rather it complements those methods by providing additional avenues for members to give.