With Fall break and Thanksgiving break coming soon, kids will have more free time on their hands. Wouldn’t it be great to give them wholesome, faith-based kids’ tv shows to watch in their spare time? (more…)
This is a game-changer for church announcements.
Digital Signage is a feature in Proclaim that lets you display announcement slides, Bible verse art, and more on monitors all throughout your church building. Think of it as having miniature billboards you can customize with just a few clicks. [Read 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. And for good reason.
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—they just work a little differently.
For credit and debit cards, a processing fee is the 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 here is this: should a church pay the processing fee for online gifts, or should they make it optional for a giver to cover the fee as part of their gift?
Theologically, churches vary greatly on giving. Because of that, there are multiple positions on questions like whether to cover fees or not.
While churches don’t follow a set of cookie-cutter philosophies, we can still talk about the two main camps churches fall into when it comes to allowing people to cover their own gift processing fees.
(That means to stop giving people too many options.)
(That means direct opposition to processing fees.)
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 a 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 have the ability to enable givers to cover processing fees. This means that your regular givers can increase their gifts to the same amount that the church would pay including the fees. In simpler terms: your church gets 100% of what your giver intended you to receive. (Side 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 made it optional for givers to cover fees, givers choose to pay them 60% of the time.
Options.
Faithlife Giving allows givers to pay the processing fees in addition to their gift amount ensuring your church receives the full gift amount.
Or you can choose to cover the fees as a church. Either way, Faithlife Giving gives you peace of mind, so you can focus on serving people.
Learn how Faithlife Giving makes giving an enjoyable, painless experience for your church.
Fall’s Pro Media bundle is here! Pro Media is a game-changing add-on for Faithlife Proclaim that has thousands of designs, and we’ve added even more to help churches prepare for every holiday celebration. [Read more…]
God has done great and wonderful things, and our worship services hold opportunities to proclaim them—not only in singing, preaching, and prayer, but in our presentation slides, stage design, and more. [Read more…]
Discipleship and stewardship are terms we hear often in church. But they aren’t often used together. There’s a link between discipleship and stewardship, however, and it’s not one to miss. [Read more…]
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). He passed by a man who was born blind and healed his sight (John 9). He let a woman who was an outcast wash his feet with her tears and forgave her sins (Matt 26:6–13). [Read more…]
As a pastor, it’s easy to feel like you carry the entire burden of ministry on your own. You want to lead people into a deeper faith, but there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to disciple everyone.
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 a church giving campaign goals, “more” means practically nothing to your donors. [Read more…]