Campaigning Donations

Enables payments to be processed directly in the CMS via a form. Uses an interface to the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft (BfS) for payments by direct debit (also ongoing), credit card and PayPal. The data of the payers can be sent by email to a desired recipient (when using our encryption module).

A donation form cannot simply be connected to your bank account due to the various security checks required. Therefore, non-profit organisations have been using online donation services such as Spendino, Fundraisingbox, Altruja or Twingle for years, which partly finance their services through volume-based service fees or a percentage withheld from the donation. Organisations that guarantee their donors a low advertising and administration cost ratio can quickly start to sweat when up to 5% of the donation is "lost" through the transaction alone. That is why we have been looking for a more favourable solution. We found a solution for recognised non-profit organisations based in Germany with the interface to the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft's donation tool, which they offer to their customers free of charge. Here, only the usual market fees for the business account are charged, for direct debit donations nothing is withheld, for donations via credit card or PayPal only their usual transaction costs. If the account had to be opened additionally, a donation account is already worthwhile from € 2,500 online donation income per year (as of 2019). To be fair, however, we must point out that online donation services sometimes offer much more than just donation processing, which is why a cooperation can still be worthwhile overall.  

Functionality:

Allows you to select a donation purpose. Donation purposes can be illustrated with pictures and text. If the form is linked with a certain parameter, a donation page with a preset donation purpose can be called up. Specific donation amounts can be offered for selection or a free donation amount can be entered. To avoid incorrect entries, the IBAN is already checked against the check digit when the field is left. IBAN and credit card numbers are also checked during processing via the interface. Here, too, feedback appears on the website in the event of incorrect entries. Technically, users do not leave the website at any time. The form is single-step by default, but offers a check of all entries before the payment is triggered. We are not aware of the advantages of additional form steps. If you want to make long-looking forms more compact, we recommend using the accordion feature to focus only on the currently active part of the form.

Planned, but not yet implemented:

• New implementation with form framework as wwt3_pay with an interface to the payment gateway *Mollie*, then also usable as a payment channel for paid events (with wwt3_eventregistration) brochures or merchandising items (with wwt3_product). We will offer Mollie in the future, as the service is also open to non-profit and international organisations. Payments by direct debit, credit card or PayPal are also possible here, as well as various other German and international payment methods (Klarna, Apple Pay, Sofort, giropay, CarteBancaire for FR, PostePay for IT, Przelewy24 for PL, EPS for AT, iDEAL for NL or Bancontact for BE). Although Stripe (as of the end of 2020) - unlike BfS - retains €0.25 for direct debits (0.3% for an average online donation of €80) and €0.10 for PayPal payments (in addition to PayPal fees), it sometimes agrees lower percentage retentions on credit card donations with charitable organisations. Mollie can thus be just as cheap as BfS and in the medium term significantly cheaper than one of the widespread donation tools.

• If required, we are also happy to implement a "count-up" to a specific donation target as an additional request - similar to the function in the support feature.