How to Receive Donations????

How to Receive Donations Through Your Non Profit Web Site
By Thomas M Johanson

A Nonprofit Organization (NPO) could be any charitable or social institution whose revenues are used only for administrative purposes and for execution of expansion plans. They spend a significant chunk of the donations they receive on the betterment of the society through various social causes. An NPO or a charity keeps receiving recurring donations from generous donors in addition to the donations from the new names that keep adding to their list of donors every now and then.

Since most non profit organizations run on donations in cash and kind, it is essential that a website for a non profit organization is designed in such a way that donors can use it to make any kind of donations. Listed in this article, are a few tips to efficiently managing donations through your non profit web site.

Embedding a donation module

Many people regularly contribute for a charity and most of these contributions are in the form of cash. Most charities handle monetary donations through cash or checks. A non profit web site should have a donation module that enables donors to make monetary donations online without any hassles. With sites like PayPal, handling monetary transactions becomes quite easy. The entire process is quick and the deposits as well as the withdrawals are done in a few seconds. However, PayPal charges a small transaction fee for the services offered. Another way to receive donations is by taking help from a secured payment gateway. A payment gateway could be a service provided by any vendor or a bank through which donors can process secured payments by way of internet banking or credit or debit card donations. The fees for a payment gateway can be lesser than PayPal's, however, the payment gateway might restrict your transactions to a single currency. If your donations come in from various countries, they you can use a payment gateway for local donations and use PayPal for international donations.

Security

The donation module needs to be very secure. The donors must feel no hesitation when they try to process a donation through your website. Use of a reputed payment gateway or PayPal is the best way to handle such transactions as most donors are aware of payment gateways and PayPal and hence they will be comfortable entering their secured credentials. You also need to ensure that after a donation is processed, a receipt should be immediately emailed to the donor. If there are any tax exemptions that the donor is eligible for, then the relevant certificates should be e-mailed or mailed to the donor. If the tax saving certificates have to be sent by courier or mail, then the address of the donor should be captured while he/she is making a donation.

Recurring donations

Your website should offer flexibility to the donors. There can be a login module in your website where donors can create their accounts and keep track of their past donations. Through services like PayPal, you can also enable your users to set up a recurring donation. Even sites like Wikipedia use this approach to get donations every month. If the donor has an account, he/she can keep track of the donations made till date and if online tax certificates are available, then these should be linked to the donations made by the users. Your non profit web site should also have a guest account through which anonymous donors or those who don't wish to create an account can donate. Donating a certain amount must not require a user to create an account. There should be a simple form that captures required details of the donor before proceeding to the payment gateway. Donors can be also asked to subscribe to monthly newsletters and this helps you maintain a frequent communication with your donors.

Finally, if people wish to contribute in kind, then your website should provide a form to capture details of such donors. Your administrators can then get in touch with these prospective donors over email or telephone and ask for more details. To establish good will, you can also display details of your expenditure and incoming donations, to present a clear and transparent picture to the donors about how your NPO functions. Thus, while designing your non profit web site, you should ensure that you set up a secure and easy donation module for the donors.

For more information visit Non Profit Web Site.

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