Accepting online donations using Donate

The Giving module includes everything churches and charitable organisations need to accept one-off and recurring donations from existing and new givers through an online giver user experience called Donate.

Overview of Donate and the giver user experience

From the Donate page, the giver user experience begins by entering the Amount (in the local currency of your ChurchSuite account) and choosing a Fund. Where only one active fund is set to "Show in Donate", the fund is pre-selected. The donation Frequency offers a choice between One-off and Recurring donations - in the Fund settings, you can lock a fund to one-off-only or recurring-only.

Depending on the payment service integrations completed, the giver can choose their payment Method - by debit/credit card (through the Stripe integration) or direct debit bank payment (through the GoCardless integration). Both integrations support one-off and recurring donations.

For UK customers, depending on the selected fund's settings, the giver can optionally Gift Aid their donation. The giver can also be invited to increase their donation to cover the transaction fees - this option shows after the giver has entered an amount - Gift Aid is claimable on the increased donation amount. Next, the giver enters their Email address, and after accepting your data protection statement, they can Proceed to the next step.

For a previously-remembered device where the giver has used Donate before, the giver is taken to the payment details stage; otherwise, a security code is sent to the giver's email address, which they'll enter into the form to confirm the giver's identity. The giver can optionally select Remember me on this device, which will save a security cookie in the giver's browser, meaning they won't be prompted for a security code for that email address on that device in the future. A previously-remembered giver can also opt to no longer be remembered.

Clicking Proceed - and if the email address is matched to more than one active giver (or active Address Book contact that doesn't yet have a linked giver profile) - the giver is invited to select the person to whom the donation should be assigned. In the example below, Paul and Fiona share the same email address in ChurchSuite.

If the email address does not match an existing person in ChurchSuite, or if the giver selects I am not in this list, the giver is prompted to enter basic contact details and a new giver profile is created. Name, the first line of address, city and postcode/zip code fields are required. For multi-site customers, the new giver profile is added to your first site, as determined by the order set in the Sites section of your Account Settings - the giver cannot select their site.

Card donations...

The donation details are summarised, showing the amount, frequency, and fund. Next, the giver enters their Card details or, depending on the device, ApplePay or Google Pay.

Direct Debit donations (Bank)

The donation details are summarised, showing the amount, frequency, and fund. Next, the giver clicks Proceed to GoCardless to complete the transaction, which requires entry of their bank sort code and account number.

A success message is displayed. For "instant payments" by card, the success message will confirm the donation has been immediately processed, and for direct debit payments, the success message will confirm the transaction is being processed by their bank. The success page can be closed in both cases, even if the transaction is still processing. A confirmation email will be sent to the giver when the payment request has been approved and completed. Recurring donations are recorded as a pledge against the giver's profile. A confirmation email will be sent each time the pledge is processed on the appropriate 'due date'. Pledge confirmation emails contain a Manage Giving link through which the giver can self-manage their recurring donation.

What happens next?

One-off donations are immediately added to the giver's profile in ChurchSuite. They can also be viewed using the Online Donations report in the Giving module's Reports section.

For recurring donations, a "subscription" pledge is added to the Pledges tab of the giver's profile. Subscription pledges are distinguished from manually added pledges (i.e., those used to reflect standing orders and other planned giving pledges) by a "DD" or 'Card' icon in the Method column.

Successfully processed subscription pledge donations are automatically added to the giver's profile on each due date while the pledge is active, and the giver receives a fund confirmation email each time Stripe/GoCardless processes their pledge. The confirmation email contains an embedded Manage giving link that allows them to further manage their regular giving, to make changes or cancel.

If Pledge Management is enabled in your Giving module's My ChurchSuite Options, a Manage option for each active pledge is provided to the giver through their My Giving section in My ChurchSuite.

For recurring Direct Debit donations, the giver can Edit the pledge amount (but not change the due date) or Cancel their pledge. If a giver wishes to change their pledge 'due date', they must cancel their existing pledge and set up a new pledge for the new due date.

For recurring Card donations, the giver can Edit the pledge amount or add a pledge end date, Cancel their pledge or Change payment method to change the card used for future pledge donations. If a giver wishes to change their pledge 'due date', they must cancel their existing pledge and set up a new pledge for the new due date.

Giving module users can use the Online Donations and Subscriptions reports in the Giving module's Reports section to view details of online donations and subscription pledges. The reports show details of the status of online donations as they are processed by Stripe and GoCardless.

For UK customers, Gift Aided online donations are added with an Unclaimed status - Gift Aid will be claimable on those donations when you next complete a Gift Aid claim and the status will update from Unclaimed to Claimed.

For one-off online donations, a one-day digitally-signed Gift Aid declaration is created against the giver profile to cover the donation's fund and date. For recurring donations, an enduring Gift Aid declaration is created to cover the donation's fund with a start date but no end date. The declaration start date is always when the pledge/donation is created. To reclaim Gift Aid on a giver's historic donations made in the previous four years, you must obtain a separate declaration to cover those earlier dated donations. Note that where an existing online giver makes a one-off donation and already has a Gift Aid declaration covering the date and fund of the donation, Donate always adds a further Gift Aid declaration, with the declaration and donation linked - this is to meet HMRC requirements of having a clear audit trail between each one-off donation and the respective declaration. It also enables a giver to optionally choose not to Gift Aid online donations if they wish, even though the giver may have a pre-existing declaration that would otherwise cover the online donation date and fund.

For the giver, the donation is automatically charged to their bank account or card and, for recurring donations, donations are charged automatically on each subsequent due date. Each payment provider has its own "payout" process for depositing the donations into your organisation's designated bank account net of transaction fees - see the related Stripe and GoCardless Integration support articles for further information.

Finally, each time an online donation is processed, the giver will receive a confirmation email containing all the details of their donation. The confirmation email can be optionally customised on a fund-by-fund basis, perhaps adding a personal message. The donation confirmation details will be appended to the end of any custom email message you have set.

Setting up Donate

To begin receiving online donations through Donate, you must first Enable Online Giving. This involves completing an integration with one of the payment service providers. Depending on your country/region, integrations are available with Stripe for card payments and GoCardless for bank and direct debit payments. From the Givers section of the Giving module, click Enable Direct Debit and Enable credit/debit card giving to complete each integration.

In both cases, you'll be taken to the respective payment provider integrations to complete the GoCardless (Direct Debit) and/or Stripe (Cards) account-opening process, linking the respective payment provider account to your ChurchSuite account. See our related support articles at the bottom of this page for detailed guidance on completing each integration - Integrating Stripe for online card payments and Integrating GoCardless for online donations.

Having completed the payment service provider integrations, head into the Giving module's settings, which can be accessed via the cogwheels icon in the top right corner of the module. Select the Donate Options tab. At the top of the page is a link to your Donate page - you can use this URL link in communications to promote online giving. You can also add/embed the link to your Donate page on your website. Next, click to Edit each of the options in turn:

Choose the Integrations through which you would like to accept online donations. Note that payment method integrations accepting "live payments" are available in Donate. Any restricted payment methods will be unavailable in Donate until the account restriction is resolved. A restriction typically happens if there is incomplete security verification on a Stripe or GoCardless account. You should liaise directly with the payment service provider to complete any outstanding verification, after which the restriction will be lifted, and live payments and payouts will resume.

The Transaction Fees option enables/disables the "Ask giver to cover transaction fees" option in Donate, inviting the giver to increase their donation to cover the transaction fees. Finally, you can add a custom Success Message that will display on-screen when a giver has completed the online donation process - perhaps an opportunity to add a personalised thank you.

Lastly, head into the Funds section of the Giving module and ensure that at least one fund is set to "Show in Donate". Fund visibility lets you control the funds people can give to through Donate. Note also that funds can be ordered within the list, perhaps placing your most commonly used fund first in the list. The first fund set to show in Donate is the default fund pre-selected in Donate.

Selecting to Edit a fund surfaces additional Donate-related settings for each fund - whether to Show [the fund] in Donate, whether the fund accepts one-off only or one-off and recurring donations and for UK customers, whether the fund accepts 'Gift-Aided' online donations - you can optionally set a Fund as "Not claimable", which prevent givers from 'Gift Aiding" donations for that fund.

Now, all you need to do is make Donate available to your prospective givers - perhaps via a "Giving" page on your website with an embedded Donate button or by sharing your Donate page URL in your email communications. Donate can also be accessed by your members with My ChurchSuite access from within the My Giving section - see our related Support Article at the bottom of the page, entitled Activating the My Giving section in My ChurchSuite for further information.

Top Tip! Suggested donation amounts and frequency

Adding /?amount=X to the Donate URL or Fund Page URL will pre-populate the form with the suggested amount "X". The giver can still optionally override the suggested amount.

Additionally, adding /?frequency=monthly or /?frequency=weekly to the end of the Donate URL will pre-populate the form with that suggested frequency.

By adding a hyphen and then an appropriate number, you can specify the start day for a recurring donation. For example, adding /?frequency=monthly-1 to the URL will populate the form with a suggested frequency of 'Monthly - 1st'. You can do the same for a 'weekly' frequency, with 1 being Monday, 2 being Tuesday and so on.

The giver can still override a suggested frequency. Note that the Fund must accept recurring donations for the Frequency field to show on the Donate page.

Finally, you can combine both parameters to suggest an amount and frequency. Simply include an & symbol in between, for example, https://training.churchsuite.com/donate?/amount=10&frequency=weekly

Top Tip! Using a QR Code

Want to add a single Fund to your webpage? QR codes enable prospective givers to head straight to the fund page from their device simply by scanning the fund page's unique QR code with their camera. All you need to do is access the code via the More actions:

...and then copy the image or save it to your own device - right-click on the image to access the options. Once copied, you can add it to your webpage.

You can even add the QR code to your email notices, announcement slides and social media pages!

Managing recurring donation pledges

The Giving module's Reports section includes useful reports to help finance teams view and manage online donations and subscription pledges added through Donate.

If a giver successfully sets up a recurring donation (Stripe or GoCardless), their Pledge will be shown in the Subscriptions report. The Status column indicates the subscription pledge status: Active, Future, Expired or Cancelled.

Users can also manage subscription pledges from the Pledges tab of a giver's profile. As with the Subscriptions report, a User can Edit or Cancel a giver's pledge on behalf of the giver - with their permission, of course!

It is not possible to delete an Active subscription pledge or a giver with an Active, Expired or Cancelled subscription pledge (except where no donations have been processed for the pledge). However, once a subscription pledge has Expired (where the pledge 'end date' has passed) or been Cancelled (either by a Giving module User or by the giver in My ChurchSuite), it is possible to optionally Delete pledges from a giver's profile. Deleting a pledge will remove all historic pledge progress (and pledge progress reporting) and unlink historic pledged donations from the pledge - however, the donations themselves will not be deleted. Once all subscription pledges have been deleted, it may be possible to delete the giver if retention of the giver's profile is no longer necessary - this will only be possible if no donations are included in any Gift Aid claims (the UK only). Archiving inactive givers is an option.

All changes made to pledges are recorded in the Pledge Changes log (click View changes). Note that a 'pledge changes' notification email is automatically sent to the giver, and a note of the sent notification is logged in the giver's Communication log on their profile.

Troubleshooting unreceived donations

If donations are leaving the giver's card or bank account but are not seemingly arriving in your organisation's bank account, check the following:-

• Check for an active subscription for the giver in the Subscriptions report. If not, confirm that your GoCardless/Stripe integration has been completed successfully.
• If you have multiple bank accounts configured in GoCardless or Stripe, check that you are looking for the donations in the correct account!
• Check that your Stripe/GoCardless account has not been "restricted" - typically caused by incomplete account verification steps. When this happens, live payments and/or payouts are disabled until the issue is resolved with the payment service provider.
• Check that you have assigned valid bank details to your Stripe or GoCardless account and that there are no outstanding account verification steps - you'll need to log in to your Stripe or GoCardless account to confirm this.
• Check that the giver has set up a subscription to your church or organisation, not someone else!
• If this is a giver's first donation made via GoCardless, be aware that there's a slightly longer time between the first donation date and the date funds are processed by your bank. For further information, see https://gocardless.com/direct-debit/timings/ - you'll notice that there are some additional days for the first donation until the bank confirms the mandate, which happens before the mandate can be charged for the first time. When processing a donation with GoCardless, since a donation can fail while the mandate is being set up, it doesn't show in ChurchSuite until GoCardless confirms it. The process is that the donation is created (instruction sent to the bank), then it's confirmed (bank confirms there are funds and it can be processed), after which it is processed (bank confirms the funds have been transferred to GoCardless) and finally paid out (GoCardless pay out the funds to your bank account). Since donations might fail when the mandate is first created (e.g., lack of funds), ChurchSuite doesn't show the donation in the Giving module until it is confirmed. You can view a full list of donations, including those created but not confirmed (i.e. they could still fail) via your GoCardless account dashboard.