Joined on 12-08-2003
TechSoup Member
Does anybody have a open source ecommerce type application they would recommend for a church? Our current online giving solution is not functioning in the way we desire and we have decided to add the online giving functionality to our own custom PHP app, but I would like to find a PHP open source ecommerce app to start from. I have looked at a few, but they all obviously focus on a storefront type setup and we will be doing donations not purchases. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
There's no reason why you could not use an application like OSCommerce, Zen Cart, or other programs to take donations. You could set it up so that rather than products you have listings of different types of donations. This would give you the advantage of being able to use the system in the future to sell things like products or tickets if you wanted to.
But to keep it simple and flexible I would just open a PayPal account and use that. They provide simple payment or "subscription" links for donors and I think getting donors to start a subscription would be ideal so they don't forget about you. They can pay with their PayPal funds or use a credit card. I think PayPal even has a sort of "shopping cart" that you can set up as well.
Joined on 04-02-2008
TechSoup Member
Yes, PayPal has a whole range of solutions including a "shopping cart" wizard. You can create as many donation buttons, with options, and PayPal will give you the code needed to place these on the site. You will also be able to slightly customize the "cart" your users will see as they add products and checkout. Once you sign up for PayPal, look for merchant solutions.
Hi,
PayPal does sound like a good option. In addition, you might want to consider other 'online donation' services.
Here is some discussion in another thread about accepting
online payments.
Best wishes,
Joined on 12-08-2003
TechSoup Member
Thanks for all the info. We did consider Paypal, but it doesn't offer the customization that we want. We have used a few different web based solutions and we have decided to add online donations to our (currently in progress) custom PHP app, therefore I am primarily looking for a PHP cart, the issue I think I am going to run into with most shopping system is recurring donations. We are a church, so this is how people will be able to tithe online. We need the ability to accept recurring donations in addition to one time donations.
I'd also recommend you check out PayPal's
Website Payments Standard solution. Specifically, they show you how easy it is to implement on your website to collect donations:
PayPal Donations
Good luck!
Yann
Hi,
What are the customization issues that you are trying to solve? Maybe we could help more if we knew what you where you are getting stuck.
Best wishes,
We did consider Paypal, but it doesn't offer the customization that we want. We need the ability to accept recurring donations in addition to one time donations.
Are you sure PayPal can't meet your requirements? Because they do in fact allow you to accept recurring donations (if you have a Business or Premium account). You should be able to fully integrate their solution within your site. Please see this section for details:
PayPal Subscriptions and Recurring Payments
Yann
Joined on 12-08-2003
TechSoup Member
A realization we have come to after using a few hosted solutions is that nothing does exactly what we want it to do. We want it to integrate into our website (www.rockharbor.org) and we also want people to have a single login for everything related to the church. We are working on the custom PHP web app that manages volunteers, event sign ups, attendee information, etc. We have come to the decision that we want to integrate it into this app, which is why we are looking for (preferably) an open source php ecommerce app we can customize. If we have to pay for an app, that isn't an issue, we just need open source so we can make it into what we want. Our business office uses an accounting app called Shelby, which is designed for churches. They have their own online donation program, but it doesn't work very well. Being that any other solution our business office will have to manually input the data, we want to make it as simple as possible for them by outputting data in the order to be entered etc. We are pretty set on a custom app at this point so I don't think Paypal will work for what we want. The one app I've found thus far that appears to do what we want (although I'm not certain about recurring donations) is called Magento.
Joined on 06-30-2005
TechSoup Member
Please post an update if you run across something that you are going to use. I have been looking for a online donation app that I can integrate into our website as well. I know a lot of folks are encouraging PayPal as a good choice, but I think a word of caution is in order: PayPal is not a bank and it isn't subject to the laws regulating the banking industry. They therefore have a great deal of freedom in how they manage your account, including freezing funds.
Joined on 07-14-2006
TechSoup Member
This link has a good comparison chart of available software for collecting online donations: http://www.affinityresources.com/pgs/awz55Online2.shtml
I have experience working with nonprofits in setting up online donation systems and ecommerce, so feel free to ask me questions.
Hi, jjfossey,
I think the question here is about whether there is a PHP open source ecommerce app that they can customize in some very specific ways. Is this something that you have helped out with? I've gotten pretty curious, too!
Best wishes,
Joined on 02-04-2009
TechSoup Member
I run into exactly what you're looking for almost daily. Many non-profits simply want a way for people to donate easily by either adding a link to your page or integrating the method into your existing system. You don't want a shopping cart setup with "add to cart" etc, but rather a way to simply allow people to enter their card information and donate.
From what we see alot Paypal is not good for this being that you want to integrate it into your website. You will need a gateway and a merchant account for your non-profit (recommended but you may find something comparable) that plugs into a gateway which you can integrate into your PHP module.
I'm a bit weary about posting links as I don't want to give the impression that I'm advertising.
Email me at msinfo@merchantseek.com with any additional questions and I'm sure I can help.
Joined on 08-27-2009
TechSoup Member
We have paypal donations launched on our site, but we can't figure out how to customize things. We'd like for people to specify their donation: General Fund, Faith Promise, building programs, perhaps even collecting donations for people raising money to go on short term trips.
Digging through paypal's site hasn't been much help. Where do I go from here? If I can get someone to point me in the right direction, I could take care of the rest.
Thanks, glenn
greiner@unionchapel.com
Joined on 07-22-2009
Houston, TX
TechSoup Member
To the best of my knowledge PayPal doesn't allow for collecting additional information on their site. Doing so is standard though when using CRM solutions that "integrate" with PayPal like CiviCRM. Your donor enters the information you want prior to being sent to Paypal. After the contribution is completed, PayPal updates your CRM system to show the completed donation under that record. The result, a donation, a donor, and additional information all held in your CRM system.