ChurchTrac's Online Giving is a powerful tool that enables your church to take donations online and have them automatically added to your Giving Screen.
To get started with Online Giving, navigate to the Giving Screen and select the "Online Giving" Tab. To enable online giving, create (or connect to an existing) Stripe account.
The first time you visit our Online Giving page, you will be prompted to set up your Stripe account. Make sure you have your church's EIN number as well as the church bank account and routing number where Stripe will deposit your funds. Upon clicking "Setup Your Online Giving Account", you will be taken to Stripe.com to complete the process of setting up your account.
The first step of creating your Stripe Account is to add the email address you wish to use for online giving. This will create a 2-step verification and an email validation.
Validate your email by clicking the button emailed to you by Stripe.
Once you have validated your account and logged in to your newly created Stripe Account, you will be prompted to activate payments for your account.
Please ensure you select "Nonprofit Organization" as the business type. Choosing any other option may cause your account to function incorrectly.
Stripe will also ask for your church's official name, EIN number, and address.
Stripe will also ask for your church website. Under the "Product description field, we recommend saying "Religious non-profit accepting donations from members. Using any other terminology may result in Stripe not completing your setup or requesting further information from your organization.
Stripe will ask for additional information to finalize your the setup for enabling payments on your account. Once completed, you will be able to use the Online Giving options in ChurchTrac.
Once you've created or linked your Stripe account, you will be redirected back to the Online Giving Screen in ChurchTrac. Now you'll see the unique link that we have provided for your Online Giving page. You can copy this link and add it to your church website or social media page(s).
The Online Giving page also has several configuration options that you can provide. You can also choose whether or not to enable guest donations, enable text giving, fees options, and more.
Once you have created your Stripe account, we recommend bookmarking stripe.com and log in regularly. Stripe's dashboard makes it easier to see when deposits come into your bank account. If you are a church or ministry in the United States, you can log in to your ChurchTrac account's online giving options and make sure that ACH is enabled. ACH allows donors to give directly from their checking account, with lower Stripe fees of only 25 cents per donation compared to credit card transaction fees.
You can specify which Categories will be displayed as Online Giving options. Go to the Giving Screen and click the "Categories" Tab. Each category has an option: "Use for Online Giving?" Select YES to have that category offered as an option for online donors.
ChurchTrac gives you the option to share a unique giving QR code and URL that limits donors to giving to a single category.
You can select from your current active online giving categories as well as assign a default donation amount of your choosing. This feature is helpful for donations at specific events, missionaries, and more.
The Text Giving option allows donors to make a contribution by linking a card or bank account and texting the amount they want to give.
To enable Text Giving, navigate to the Church Connect screen > Online Giving tab > "Online Giving Options" button.
If you're using ChurchTrac's phone number, your donors should use the provided QR code or URL to access the Online Giving portal to set up text giving. Since the ChurchTrac phone number does not feature Auto-Replies, your donors cannot just text "Give" initially.
If you're using your Twilio phone number, your donors can text "Give" to your Twilio number and then receive a link to the text giving setup.
In the online giving setup screen, select the cogwheel icon next to choose payment source, to set up text giving.
By navigating to the donor giving options, your donors have the ability to add their phone number for text giving.