Credit cards are an essential tool for online fund raising. You have several options for setting up your site to take credit card donations.
  1. Open your own merchant account. You can do this through your bank or credit card company, and you may want to shop around until you find the one with the best fee. The company will do a credit check, so give yourself plenty of time for this process. Read the fine print in the agreement carefully. The biggest advantages for opening your own merchant account for online fund raising are (1) you can design your site so funds flow directly into your bank account and (2) your non profit’s name shows up on the users statement. The latter helps eliminate confusion and protests to changes.

  2. Choose a third party processor. A well known third party processor is PayPal, which charges your non profit a fee for using their merchant account to take credit card donations for your online fund raising. It’s relatively easy to set up and use an account such as PayPal, and many users trust PayPal. The disadvantage is the confusion that could result when users don’t see your company’s name on their statement and have already forgotten about the donation. Charge backs could result. If you choose to go the third party processor route for your online fund raising, be sure to include a message on your “Thank You” page about what the user will see on their credit card statement.

  3. Spring for the cost of a Credit Card Processing program. This option is most affordable for the online fund raising of larger non profits. The advantage is that the system includes tools to help you efficiently manage customer relationships. Disadvantages are costs and the limited number of companies that offer this service. Smaller non profits will want to stick to one of the first two options.