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Online Giving: Where Does Your Church Fall in This Debate?

“To cover fees or not cover fees, that is the question.” 

While Shakespeare never debated the benefit of giver-covered fees, it is a debate in churches. 

Before we look at the “why” behind giver-covered fees, let’s break down the “what.” 

What is a processing fee? 

A processing fee is an amount it costs to process or facilitate a gift. Processing fees apply to credit/debit transactions and ACH transactions.

For credit and debit cards, a processing fee is an amount charged by the credit card company that issued the card.  Most card processing fees are around 3% plus a small fixed amount for each gift. (For example, Faithlife Giving’s premium rate is 2.49% plus 30 cents.) 

For ACH transactions, a processing fee is usually a smaller percentage with a fixed amount. (Faithlife Giving’s premium ACH transaction fee is 1.0% plus 30 cents per gift.)

Every time you swipe a card or make an ACH payment—even when you’re buying groceries—someone is paying a processing fee to your bank or card issuer (Visa, Mastercard, etc.). 

The question is, should a church pay the processing fee for online gifts or make it optional for a giver to cover the fee as part of their gift?

2 views on online giving 

Theologically, churches hold different positions on giving and so also differ on whether to cover fees or not. They fall into two main camps:

  • Churches should make giving as easy as possible, so they give people many giving methods, including online giving.
  • Churches have a moral obligation to keep 100% of each gift that comes in. That means they directly oppose online giving because there’s a small processing fee deducted from each gift.

No matter where you fall in the discussion, Faithlife Giving could be a great fit for your church. That’s because our goal is not to tell you how your church should give but provide you with an online giving platform that supports your goals and mission. 

online giving blog

That’s where one of our customers’ favorite features comes in. 

Giver-covered fees 

If your church is using Faithlife Giving, you can enable givers to cover processing fees. This means that your regular givers can increase their gifts to include processing fees, so the church gets 100% of what your giver intended you to receive. (Note: The entire gift, even the portion covering the fees, is tax-deductible.)

It’s fun to see how giver-covered fees are working out for churches using Faithlife Giving:

  • Over 70% of churches with Faithlife Giving have giver-covered fees enabled 
  • Nearly 30% of churches with Faithlife Giving have 100% of their fees covered by givers

For our customers who make it optional for givers to cover fees, givers choose to pay them 60% of the time.

What makes Faithlife Giving different? 

Options. 

With Faithlife Giving, givers can choose to pay the processing fees in addition to their gift amount, ensuring your church receives the full gift amount. 

Or you can choose for your church to cover processing fees.

Either way, Faithlife Giving gives you peace of mind so you can focus on serving people.

Learn how Faithlife Giving can make online giving an enjoyable, seamless experience for your church.

online giving blog

Comments

  1. While some churches are opting for online giving, there is not much discussion of the “cons” — just offerings for the “pros.” Online tithing/offering seems rather functional than a participation in the worship for which we gather on Sunday mornings. If we have made a covenant in our membership at a local church to bring in our tithes and offerings, to meet together in worship and study of God’s Word, it seems that we would want to honor our worship with our presence. What has happened to those who are “out of town” mailing in their offerings or dropping them off to their church prior to leaving town. Online giving to replace our presence seems to smack of devaluing our worship.

    • Dr. Lightner, Giving by credit doesn’t mean folks don’t or won’t attend services. But if it did, then I wouldn’t want that person as a member anyway. They would be thinking that just giving (an act) covers their sins? Giving doesn’t save anyone. Faith in Christ does. Hopefully we don’t know anyone who is a church member who thinks giving alone gets them or anyone else to heaven? Blessings to you!

  2. If one tithes, then to actually do that, the individual must pay the fees to ensure the full tithe gets to the Church. There is another option rather than using a credit card, you can have your bank debit your account and credit the Church’s account. No credit involved. That way our tithe gets to the Church just as if we wrote a check. Banks already make their fair share by investing the dollars we have in our accounts and they make millions. No need to take part of what should be going to the Church. If either the individual or the Church pays those fees then all that is for the Church mission isn’t getting there. Banks shouldn’t be charging for donations to the Church. Perhaps the banks could/should claim those forgiven credit fees as charitable donations???? Talk about making some “good will” with their Church going customers!

  3. I’m always surprised to hear people who say “giving” is worship. That is clearly a man made construct. Giving is an act of trusting in God, believing his Word, and honoring Him with our first fruits. However you choose to do this is a matter of intent or heart. I cover my fees because I want all of my tithe to go to the church. Many never consider the hours of handling money and counting that budget/finance teams put in. While this necessary, appreciated, and their offering of time and talents, it is busy work that takes away from doing Kingdom work. If I can pay a few dollars out each week so others can have less work, that is a plus for the Kingdom. Let’s allow people to support the work of their local church anyway we can and not condemn any one way. Freedom in Christ.

    • Hi Doug! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic. We appreciate the healthy discussion!

      Karen from Faithlife

  4. An amazing discussion on the act of giving, the act of giving is very important and should be taken serious. Givers should try to cover the processing fee as to give the exact amount they wish to give. for example, tithes, covenant giving and many others. Thanks! Apostle Nathaniel David

  5. If someone raises “the fee” argument; I ask them to consider the cost of offering envelopes (which aren’t cheap) the cost of people’s time (the counting team/staff) and travel to/from the bank. Those are fixed costs that are paid through the church budget. With our online system integrated with our database management system, once a gift is given it is immediately posted to the giving record and the general ledger is updated once the deposit hits the bank. The time this frees up for staff is amazing.