Faithlife Giving has been serving churches throughout the United States for just over a year and, already, the giving stats we’re seeing are staggering. The biggest lesson coming out of all of it is this: If you’re only collecting gifts on Sunday morning, you’re missing out on a lot of giving for your church.
But that’s not all. Wait until you see the impact recurring giving has on above-and-beyond giving (gifts given outside of a recurring schedule that’s already been set up). (more…)
Fall is here and that means the busyness of the holiday season is about to start. And while the holidays are full of celebration and fun, it can be stressful for church members to find time to plan their generosity for the upcoming new year. [Read more…]
“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.”
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?
Theologically, churches hold different positions on giving and so also differ on whether to cover fees or not. They fall into two main camps:
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.
That’s where one of our customers’ favorite features comes in.
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:
For our customers who make it optional for givers to cover fees, givers choose to pay them 60% of the time.
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.
You might be wondering how mobile giving, a simple technology, could help your church be more generous. Stay with me.
As believers, we all experience times when the Holy Spirit speaks to us and we are compelled to action. During those moments, we’re in good company.
There were many times during Jesus’ earthly ministry when he was moved with compassion to help others. He stopped in the middle of a huge crowd to talk with the woman who touched the hem of his cloak (Mark 5:25–34). And He passed by a man who was born blind and healed his sight (John 9). He also let a woman who was an outcast wash his feet with her tears and forgave her sins (Matt 26:6–13). [Read more…]
There’s a reason New Year’s resolutions like “pray more” tend to fail. “More” is vague—when will you feel like you’ve reached your resolution? And if you’re talking about church giving campaign goals, “more” means practically nothing to your donors. [Read more…]
Have you joined the free media club yet?
Okay, so it’s not an “official” club, but when you sign up, you get at least 10 pieces of free, professionally designed media sent to you every quarter. So even though we don’t have t-shirts or membership cards, it’s still pretty great. [Read more…]
As a church leader, you know how generosity is key to the Christian life. You want people to experience spiritual transformation and honor God by giving their time, talent, and treasure. But it can feel discouraging when you only have a few members who actually give and serve faithfully. [Read more…]
About a year ago, leaders from the Church of God came to us with a need: to increase unity across their movement.
We had just begun our early access program of Faithlife Equip, an integrated platform of all our ministry tools, and we were inviting churches to pilot it. Church of God Ministries contacted us, and we began dreaming together about how Faithlife Equip could serve their entire movement.
For the last several months, leaders from Church of God Ministries have been piloting Faithlife’s newest program, Equip—an integrated suite of tools for churches and ministries.
And just last weekend, Jim Lyon (General Director of Church of God Ministries) and Bob Pritchett (Founder and CEO of Faithlife) officially announced a partnership that will provide a way to streamline the global movement’s communications and community.
Watch: Faithlife Equip and Church of God Ministries partner in a pilot program to solve church communication challenges. Read the press release here.
It’s one thing to build a great church website. It’s another thing to keep it up to date.
There are many benefits to keeping your church website up to date, chief among them being that your website stays useful for people. [Read more…]