Choosing the Right Payment Processor

A fundamental aspect of running a nonprofit organization is raising funds and collecting money to further the organization’s cause. With a large portion of transactions nowadays taking place online, it is no surprise that most donations to nonprofits are also being made online, and to be able to receive these donations, nonprofits and charities need to have an efficient payment processor available.

While most fundraising platforms use existing payment processing tools such as Paypal to receive donations, there are significant differences in processors that are set up to receive payments of all kinds, versus receiving donations for nonprofits.

Let’s take a look at a Donorbox, Paypal, Stripe, and Givingfuel comparison to understand how each may be more beneficial in terms of fundraising than the other.

Stripe

Stripe is an online platform that functions as an online payment service to let people make payments and allows businesses to accept payments. It is particularly used for e-commerce and has several features such as recurring payments that make it popular and also allows businesses to customize their payment tools. It can also be used by nonprofits to receive online donations and set up recurring giving programs.

Paypal

Paypal is a very well-known payment service that functions in a way similar to stripe and the most common name in the e-commerce industry. While Paypal is popular, it does not allow recurring payments, which makes it difficult for subscription programs, but is very efficient and convenient in other aspects of online funds transfer, such as providing receipts and customer support.

However, both Paypal and Stripe are online payment processors that are not aimed solely at nonprofits, but also at a large variety of enterprises and businesses, and do not have several features that make them very suitable as nonprofit fundraising platforms.

Donorbox

Donorbox, unlike Paypal and Stripe, is a software that is aimed specifically at nonprofits to help them raise funds and manage their donor database at the same time. This software provides several important features such as giving management to keep track of donations and activities, analytics metrics to help measure a campaign’s progress, and social media sharing, which helps nonprofits grow by spreading awareness and engaging with prospects. There are also options to integrate third-party tools such as Salesforce for extra CRM features, and most importantly, it has its own payment processing tool to make donations easier.

Givingfuel

Givingfuel is a very flexible, online-giving platform designed for nonprofit organizations of all kinds looking to maximize their donations. The software provides multiple tools such as social media sharing and recurring donations, as well as peer-to-peer fundraising. The interface is compatible with mobiles and easy to use. The platform gives its users the ability to customize their donation pages and forms. It also handles the payment processing, while also providing analytics and reports on donation activity, as well as donor profiles.