Contents

• Introduction: Online Giving Methods
  • Who can donate online?
• Set up Online giving
  • Enable Online Giving
  • Configure your payment provider
  • Select a Fund
  • Ask to cover fees
  • Customize the thank you message
  • Email receipt
• How can people give?
  • Via your ChMeetings giving link (one time & recurring)
    • Payment methods
    • ACH payments
      • Enable ACH
      • Fees
      • ACH Process for contributors
  • Via a custom donation link
• Editing Amounts or Canceling Recurring Giving

This is a paid feature.

Introduction: Online Giving Methods

By enabling online giving, your members can easily contribute to your church online. There are three methods through which this can be achieved: 

• Via PayPal.
• By Integrating a Stripe account, for credit card contributions.
• Using any other external payment provider and adding a custom donation link within ChMeetings.

Who can donate online?

Everyone can donate using your ChMeetings giving link, regardless of whether they are a member of your church (with a ChMeetings account) or not. Moreover, guests who donate can easily be registered to ChMeetings via your Contributions area. Here are some additional details.

Set up Online giving

Enable Online Giving

To enable Online Giving, please start by going to: Contribution > Online Giving. Next, turn on the toggle to enable the feature.

Configure your payment provider

You will now be able to configure your payment provider, by clicking Configure. 

Next, choose your payment provider.

• If you select PayPal, please enter your paypal email and click Integrate. 

• If you would like to use Stripe, please select it and click Integrate. You will be taken to Stripe’s login screen where you will need to connect to your account. 

Note: You can disconnect from your payment provider anytime, by clicking the Disconnect button and confirming your choice. 

Select a Fund

The funds you select will be displayed to members when they give via your ChMeetings giving link, so that they can select where their donation should go. 

Ask to cover fees

You can ask donors to cover the processing fees, by turning on the toggle. You can either select: 

• A percentage out of the total donation (less or equal to the fees you pay to the payment provider); 
• An amount, less or equal to the minimum processing fee.

Customize the thank you message

This is the message that donors will see after they contribute. Be sure to let them know how their donation contributes to your church and to thank them for their generosity.

Email receipt

Here is where you can customize the email that goes out to your donors, confirming its receipt. 

Please enter an email from which this message should be sent, then customize the message template. 

You can add merge fields to your template, from the Add to Email list:

• Place your cursor in the position where you would like to add the field. 
• Select the desired field from the Add to Email list.
• Click the 🕀 sign to enter the field into your email body.

Merge fields will retrieve specific information from within the member’s profile or the donation payment transaction, and add it to the email text when it is sent out. The information will be personalized to each person automatically, so there is no need to change the template when user data is modified.

Click Save Settings when you have finished setting up online giving.

 

How can people give?

Via your ChMeetings giving link (one time & recurring)

People can give either via your direct giving link, found within your ChMeetings online giving area. Simply copy it or click the QR code icon to generate a QR code that points to your link. Share it with everyone to start collecting contributions. 

Once you have configured online giving, members will have the option to either contribute once or on a recurring basis. They can do so by going to your ChMeetings giving link, selecting the amount and the fund, then choosing whether they want to contribute on a recurring basis. If so, they can select the frequency of their contribution.  They will have the option to contribute via PayPal and/or Credit Card, depending on your payment gateway. Recurring giving is available through both PayPal and Stripe. All one-time or recurring payments will be available for church admins to manage under Contributions > Online Giving, under the Payments or Recurring tab respectively.

Payment methods

Anyone can donate via PayPal, Credit Card or ACH Bank Transfer via your ChMeetings Giving Link. 

Members with access to ChMeetings can manage their payment methods under Settings > Payment Methods.  

ACH payments

Enable ACH

To enable ACH payments you will need to be based in the United States and own a Stripe account. There are only three steps to follow:

• Enable ACH in your Stripe account first.
• Enable ACH in ChMettings under Contributions > Online Giving > Giving Settings > Payment Methods.

• Configure whether you want to ask contributors to cover your ACH transaction fees. Simply add a percentage to do so (less or equal to the transaction fee).

Fees

ACH payments on Stripe cost 0.80%, capped at $5, with no monthly fees or verification fees. So, a $100 payment incurs a $0.80 fee; any payments above $625 cost $5.

Read more on the Stripe Blog.

 

ACH Process for contributors

Members can also use their bank account to contribute to your church - on a one time or recurring basis. To do so, members need to fill out their details on your ChMeetings giving link, then check their email. There will be an automatic message that lets them know that they need to verify their bank account. 

If you have also enabled member access, ACH details can be verified from within the members’ account, under Settings > Payment Methods.

The ACH verification process is the following:

1. Check the bank account within one or two days from receiving the email. Members should find two small deposits from our billing system, both totalling less than $1. Members need to take note of the two deposit amounts and keep in mind that their account balance may increase by the total deposited amount. 
2. Next, members will be guided back to your ChMeetings giving page to enter the two deposited amounts. When these are validated, their account will be verified and ready to complete the transaction. 
3. A few days later, our billing systems will cancel the two small deposits in a single transaction. This means that the members’ bank account balance may decrease by the total deposited amount.

This is a required security measure, to ensure that the donation is being initiated by the account owner. The only transactions that will be performed are the initial two deposits of a maximum total amount of $1; and the cancellation of the initial transaction. For any questions on this matter, please get in touch with our support team.

Via a custom donation link

If you are not using PayPal or Stripe, or you simply prefer not to integrate with a payment provider, you can also add a custom donation link to ChMeetings.

• Go to Member Access. 
• Under Important Links, enter your Custom Donation Link. 
• Click Save Settings.

You can also share this link with everyone to collect donations. If you have added it to the Important Links section, it will also create a Donate button on your members’ dashboard. They will see it every time they log into their ChMeetings member account. 

Editing Amounts or Canceling Recurring Giving

Members with access to ChMeetings who have chosen to donate online, on a recurring basis, can edit or cancel their transactions from within My Giving > Recurring. 

To edit the amount to be charged next time, or to cancel the recurring transaction altogether, members need to click the Options button on any transaction, then select one of the available options.