How to Give More Without Giving More

I wanted to share with you practical advice on how to start your giving New Year out well. Here is a post I wrote for OnlineGiving.org. You can see the link where it is now, posted after the article. This will show you how AI reworked what I submitted. Here is an easy and practical way to see an increase in giving in 2025.

One easy way to ensure you will make your budget next year is by showing your members how to give more without giving more! How is that possible? It’s possible by encouraging donors to move their automated giving away from their credit card to become an ACH transaction. With that one simple step, they could increase their giving by one percent or more depending on the type of card they are using. Let us explain how this works.

First, let’s define ACH-type gifts. ACH stands for Automated Clearing House. Automated Clearing House, or ACH, payments refer to the direct transfer of funds between two bank accounts. How does that work for a church? When members land on your giving page, they can choose to make their gift recurring. There are multiple ways to do this, but let’s stick to the ACH process. To set up recurring ACH giving, your members will provide their banking information, routing number, account number, and personal information when they sign up for recurring giving. The processor then takes that information and the donated amount and withdraws that money from the donor’s bank account, directing it to the church’s banking account.

How does ACH allow members to give more without giving more? It lowers the costs per transaction. If you have an online platform, you know about processing fees. The fees charged are higher on credit cards than on ACH payments. While the difference might be only 1% to 2% depending upon the type of card used and other factors, that small percentage can add up to hundreds and thousands of dollars saved that can go to missions and ministry. Thus, your members give more without giving more.

Here are a few other reasons why your church needs a recurring gift focus based on ACH giving.

• Studies show that nonprofit organizations focusing on ACH donations have higher retention rates than those not offering this service. One reason why is that,
• Unlike credit cards, ACH payment methods do not have an expiration date, allowing recurring donations to continue without interruption.
• As a result, organizations that encourage recurring donations through ACH payments raise more money than those that don’t.
• An added value for your office is the time saved by tracking down donors whose cards or accounts have expired or been canceled. It also means fewer trips to the bank to make deposits, which saves time.

Automated giving is a huge win for churches. Moving more of your donors to set their automated giving up via ACH can save a significant amount of money. One of our goals for clients is to help them increase the number of people setting up recurring giving through ACH. We have features to gently promote ACH first over a credit card for cost savings to the church. Our system is easy for your donors to use and set up. We also allow ACH to be used for text giving and for multiple checking accounts to be linked to a donor profile.

What might a 1% gain in revenue mean for your church budget? On a half-million-dollar budget, at 1%, you would have an additional $5,000 available for missions and ministry. You can calculate what this saving could mean for your church. We have helped hundreds of churches utilize this method of saving money. We can do the same for you. Does your online provider provide you with the tools to do the same? If not, it’s time to give us a call!

To learn more about how we can help you increase your giving, contact us today at (615) 206-4000 or support@onlinegiving.org

The preceding post is used by permission and appears at: https://www.onlinegiving.org/blog