- Need a handout for leadership team?
- Who is Egiving.com?
- Who are processors?
- How secure will our electronic income be?
- What products are available for my organization?
- Why not just use my bank for electronic processing?
- What about PayPal?
- Options to Egiving.com – Elements to compare:
- How does the money move?
- What does it cost to use this system?
- Why recurring giving?
- Could you help me present this to my board/leadership?
- What obstacles will I need to overcome to incorporate EFT into my ministry?
- How can a church use this program?
- What kinds of ministries would benefit from Egiving?
- How do I start?
Need a handout for leadership team?
We have a brochure available for print out and distribution.
Who is Egiving.com?
A Christian ministry of increase formed to improve Kingdom funding, especially the para-church, with electronic recurring and online giving interfaces. Egiving.com has morphed into a giver-friendly myriad of web-related giving and tracking tools. We call it all “egiving”. Founders are George and Louise Eusterman, Christians and 30-year veterans (retired 2000) in the health and fitness industry. They were early users of electronic dues for fitness center members in mid-80s, have an excellent community reputation and credit rating, and are debt free. WA State Sub-S Corp (1971) - Licensed Partner and VAR (value added reseller) of Fiserv and Stewardship Technology processing services - No secular clients -Based in Mount Vernon, WA See Founder’s Story
Who are processors?
Fiserv is Egiving.com’s legacy processor (since 2001) which owns the CheckFree component used by many Egiving.com clients. Checkfree processes the vast majority of America’s electronic checks. The Stewardship Technology processor is a web service based partner committed to Kingdom growth. Web service processing is the future growth in giving platform.
How secure will our electronic income be?
All employees and partners are American Christians. Tools are US developed and tightly held. Processing pathways follow PCI compliance and some are SAS-70 audited. Egiving.com’s interface (Egiving Management Tool) is PCI compliant. Funds transfer directly from the giver’s account to the ministry’s account. Relationships between givers and their ministry are direct with no interferences/involvements with Egiving.com. Our clients manage the relationships with their partners.
What products are available for my organization?
See our Client Resources Page. The Lord is the giver of the increase. Egiving.com’s job is to make use of electronic payment pathways like recurring (automatic) giving, online giving (variety of forms), in person paper authorization giving for events and mail, appeal concepts and samples, conference call training/coaching, live support for account help, gift tracking, and soon: linking to management software, text giving, custom reports, CRM features and links to outside CRM’s, shopping cart, email system and links to outside sytems… and a growing list of requested features.
Why not just use my bank for electronic processing?
You could in some cases if your needs were minimal and vision small (accommodate a handful of givers with monthly ACH). But a bank’s main interest is your deposits (average daily balance) on which they loan money (10X) and make their income. So they will sometimes provide some gateway services (which they may not support well) to keep you as a client. These tools will be rudimentary. A bank is not a ministry and does not provide strategy, marketing or leadership nor really understand your support needs. We believe processing should be bank and software independent because, as time goes by, one or both may need to change. Our services and low costs are not available through your bank because we are customized to non-profit support needs both on and off the web.
What about Paypal?
PayPal is limited to an online payment solution. Ministries need more than PayPal provides. Givers need a warm and comfortable environment to give in (custom giving pages). PayPal is cold and commercial. Funds need to transfer directly to ministry bank accounts. PayPal holds funds. Ministries need real human support and PayPal support is a machine. ACH (checking) giving should be inexpensive and preferable. All giver information needs to be available and purposes of gifts tracked. Recurring giving is also a critical component today for ministry increase. Egiving.com’s solutions significantly improve online giving over PayPal, in addition to answering backend issues and providing a wider scope of giving and giver information for less cost than working with PayPal.
Options to Egiving.com – Elements to compare:
- Patient/permanent support for non-web natives
- Guidance, coaching and resources for fundraising
- Combines ACH (checking) and credit card transactions.
- Kingdom purpose including processors. No secular non-profit clients.
- Connectivity to any web-based software.
- Primary focus is the giver’s interface, administration second.
- No need for a website to do recurring giving.
- Cost for value ratio.
- Customizable reporting.
- Donation management and CRM integrated if needed.
- Almost immediate customer support (see testimonies).
- Two-day ACH transfers available.
- Any processor (2012)
- Competitive default processor rates.
- Custom giving page forms client managed.
- Infinite projects and tracking and annual receipting.
- Missionary access to their accounts (2012).
- Text giving through Egiving.com, not phone company. (additional costs) (2012)
- Giver accounts.
- Crediting as well as debiting any bank to any bank (for qualified clients).
- Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually recurring giving.
- Quickbooks reports and links. (2012)
- Salesforce and other CRM links. (2012)
- iContact/Constant Contact/Outlook (and more) links. (2012)
- Ministry Sync Event funding link.
- Ekyros and WayCool software links. (more in development 2012)
- Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter links. (2012)
- PCI compliant.
- PCI vault storage for your credit card info. (added cost)
- Card swipe for on or offline card payments. (added cost)
- No client too small or too large.
- Excellent API for giving for your custom software user interface.
How does the money move?
- Day One:
Depending on time of day, files are received by Egiving.com (either keyed by you or giver online), immediately encrypted and sent via API to appropriate processor. Credit/debit card authorization feedback to giver and your account records. You also receive gift notification emails (cc’able). Giver receipted. - Day Two:
ACH (checking) transactions are routed through the American Christian Credit Union, credit/debit cards to their respective processors. ACH transactions sent on to Federal Reserve. - Day Three:
Giver’s bank account is debited for ministry specified amount. Reporting is created and distributed to your account in Egiving.com by processor. - Day Four:
Proceeds from the collection (including credit cards) are deposited to your bank account. Processor then debits fees for the draft from your account. This is an average flow. High volume clients can request shorter processing time on a case by case basis.
What does it cost to use this system?
For general ministry use, Egiving.com charges $100. para-church/$200. church for account set up, customization and training. Monthly support is $30 for your interface (giver/finance), ACH and credit card gateways and all support plus .25 per transaction fee. Credit/Debit card Merchant Fees range from 1.39% (Visa debit) to a low quality Amex at 3.95%. Last year’s average for cards for all clients was between 2.1 and 2.2%. ACH is the preferred stewardship when possible.
If you are developing a ministry application combining other software or providing a user interface to ministries or related non-profits and need a robust API for boutique giving application: rates are $15. monthly per user account plus transaction fees. Developers view API.
Why recurring giving?
Our experience in the mid-eighties with electronic payments in business is applicable to ministry. Most Americans (app.80%) live monthly on budgets. Their effectiveness as stewards is based on monthly faithfulness. As distracting as this culture is, electronic faithfulness is welcome by the giver and mission leaders. We see a 95% retention rate with monthly egivers over 5 years, which is impossible without egiving. Its costs are the least and its impact to planning and mission unquestionably valuable.
Could you help me present this to my board/leadership?
We would be happy to do a conference call, a webinar or board meeting/speaker phone short presentation. Whatever we can do to help bring early unity and focus for the mission’s sake. These tools can have a very positive effect on your organization’s funding and early team buy-in means more rapid growth in e-giving. The two key ministry contacts between Egiving.com and your organization are your admin and leader/advancement people.
What obstacles will I need to overcome to incorporate EFT into my ministry?
Fear of the unknown. Some board members and leaders may not understand the web is much more secure than the US Mail. Who has had their mailbox robbed? We all know someone. Yet who has ever heard of an payment gateway on the web compromised? We have not. The coming generations are capable of excellent stewardship but most ministries cannot accommodate their payment styles comfortably. Any egiving progress you can make will be a blessing to the mission. It is especially important for leadership to understand their role in successfully communicating giving guidance to givers that will enhance the mission, not limiting their requests by their own fears. Working closely with Egiving.com’s resources will help your organization’s integration into this new century’s giving tools.
How can a church use this program?
The Egiving Management Tool used in a church would have a progressive introduction of features over a year’s time, depending on demographics of that Body, ending with member access to giving accounts (these strategies part of Egiving.com client training). Appropriate leadership encouragement to participate is key. Younger members (<45) using their own accounts to give by project, payment method and dates increases giving. Non-account giving also serves those who are not deeply connected. Encouraging electronic First Fruit automatic giving helps member be successful and reduces seasonal slumps.
What kinds of ministries would benefit from Egiving?
Pregnancy centers and inner-city missions, offshore missions, traveling evangelists can build a solid support base with egiving. Radio stations, Christian schools, Boy Scouts and Royal Rangers etc., TV ministries and channels, Bible ministries and global and local charities etc. Really, anybody doing the Lord’s work that needs a support base will be enormously blessed by egiving.
How do I start?
When you are ready start with the Getting Started button on our homepage. If you have more questions contact us at 888-780-4483 or info at egiving.com. Step One tells us about you and explains our role, Step Two creates the processor link and Step Three is tool demo support and Step Four the first round of ongoing development strategy support.
