What is the best way to handle and process membership payments for a nonprofit organization?

We are looking to revamp our membership process and would like to know what other nonprofits are using. One suggestion has been to set up a recurring invoice via Paypal. Are there any platforms out there that are specifically designed for nonprofits or yearly renewals?

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Answers (1-10)

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Answered on Jul 26th, 2020

We use a donor database called DonorSnap. They partner with an online vendor called goEmerchant. They beauty of it is when a donation or ticket purchase comes through, it is automatically downloaded into the database which saves us a step. We can also generate batch acknowledgement letters and auto-emails to respond to our donors. The database is reasonable, because we are small enough that we don't need anything too extensive, but large enough that we would like some more advanced functions. DonorSnap also allows us to embed payment forms on our webpage so the donor doesn't leave our website to make a payment. Their pricing is based on the number of contacts you have.

WSFS INC from Women Striving For Success

Interesting... I'm looking for something that can help with the recurring payments we need to manage for membership purposes would this be able to handle that or is it just for one-off donations?

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Answered on Jul 23rd, 2020

We cater to our members, in doing so we have PayPal, Square, CashApp and we are more than willing to accept cash or checks.

John Marchiony from PRO New England | Boston Alliance Ambassador-Gold Standard

Cash, that's fascinating. I love the idea of letting people pay any way they want (and will!), but do you know what having all those platforms ends up costing you? Might you save money that you can put to your mission by consolidating?

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Answered on Jul 24th, 2020

We're very happy with our setup, service, and costs. We....

1) Use QuickBooks to generate invoices on an annual, semi-annual and monthly basis depending on our member's preference, and then we process payments through the Biller Genie automation service which is connect to our payment processor (who told us about Biller Genie).

2) Have an online payments page where people can pay for events (dinners, parties, etc) and make donations.

3) We keep members' cards on file in an electronic "Card Safe" and charge them using a virtual terminal after our regular dinner meetings.

Happy to tell you about this stuff or introduce you to our member who set this all up for us and keeps an eye on it. He does that for other customers in/around town and in the Stamford, CT area and DC.

WSFS INC from Women Striving For Success

Thank you so much for all those intricate details. That's what I was looking for. I'll definitely reach out if I have further questions about your setup. I like the idea that you were able to give your members the option to pay under various terms.