How Churches Can Go High Tech with the Collection Plate

A growing trend among most of us these days is paying for things more with credit and debit cards and less with cash and checks. One church fundraising consulting firm found that as many as 50 percent of people who receive fundraising mailings go online to make their contribution.

This trend means even the smallest churches may find it useful to explore low-cost ways to accept electronic donations for offerings, tithes, and other gifts.

There are now lots of tech tools to collect offerings by church members in different ways. TechSoup has a number of donated products that are available to churches to manage donors, accounting, and donation tracking and reporting, so you can go high tech with your collection plate.

This list is so impressive that without further ado, here is what we have for you.

Accounting Software for Churches

Here are some accounting software options that can keep track of donations and all your church's other finances.

• Intuit Quickbooks, Nonprofit Edition manages essential financial tasks like paying bills; creating invoices; producing reports; and tracking expenses, contributions, and payments.
• Acclivity accounting software is also available to manage church finances.

Donor Management Tools for Churches

Find below our impressive list of services that can keep track of your members, donors, pledges, payments, and fundraising campaigns.

• Bloomerang is cloud-based (online) donor management software to manage donors and donations.
• Caspio offers a cloud-based database for creating membership databases as well as managing contacts and donor listings.
• DonorPerfect is both fundraising and donor management software.
• eTapestry, by the nonprofit donor management leader, Blackbaud, offers online tools for fundraising and donor management.
• FileMaker is general database software that you can fully customize for managing mailing lists and maintaining donor information.
• Little Green Light is cloud-based donor management software that helps you manage donors, volunteers, members, and fundraising campaigns.
• NonprofitEasy is cloud-based software to manage donors, fundraising, events, reporting, communication, and direct-mail campaigns.
• Last but not least, Telosa Exceed! is fundraising and donor management software that can help your church organize and manage fundraising campaigns and donations.

With so many choices in this category, you might have a look at our donor management comparison chart to help you decide which ones are suitable for your church.

Collect Donations Anywhere, Any Time

Collecting credit or debit card payments is central to going high tech with your collection plate. Here are our options for churches for doing that:

• Dharma Merchant Services payment processing enables churches to accept and process credit and debit card transactions in person or over the Internet.
• PayAnywhere is a mobile phone and Internet-based payment processing service that includes a mobile app and credit card reader to process credit and debit card transactions at your church (or anywhere, as the name suggests).
• Sage payment processing services enable you to accept and process credit and debit card transactions in person or over the Internet.

Even More Fundraising Tools for Your Church

Find below ways to quickly create an online store, online fundraising campaign, or mobile fundraising campaign for your church:

• CauseVox is online fundraising software that creates fundraising sites that support donation pages, crowdfunding campaigns, and peer-to-peer fundraising pages.
• Connect2give offers a variety of discounted mobile marketing services to help your church engage community members, collect mobile donations, and create a mobile website.
• Shopify allows you to create an online store for your church. This is a useful option if your church raises money by selling clothing, crafts, or inspirational books.
• Teespring is a service you can use to raise funds for your church by offering custom-branded apparel and products through a web-based campaign that doesn't require any initial costs.

Communications

Microsoft Office is still the go-to application for email, creating newsletters, and other communications such as flyers and PowerPoint presentations.

Explore Everything TechSoup Offers

TechSoup has many more donated and discounted software options for churches in addition to tools that will help you go high tech with your offering plate. We invite you to check your eligibility and see what else you may qualify for.

Image 1: GWImages / Shutterstock

Image 2: Rawpixel / Shutterstock

Image 3: PayAnywhere

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