Using Google Checkout for Donations?
Robert Weiner, fundraising technology guru, and I exchanged a few emails yesterday on whether Google Checkouts makes sense for nonprofits. It's a completely free (including no transaction fees) way to take online payments - but how well does it work?
Robert was kind enough to let me publish his very useful thoughts on how it would work as a replacement for something like PayPal or Network for Good for online donations. Here's what he had to say:
Robert was kind enough to let me publish his very useful thoughts on how it would work as a replacement for something like PayPal or Network for Good for online donations. Here's what he had to say:
As Robert concluded, and I agree, it's hard to beat the price, but the service has some problems. If you get less donations because the process is weirder, how much does that 3% savings (because there's no transaction costs) actually buy you?
- The donor has to register for a Google account.
- The donor has to add a credit card number to the Google account, rather than entering the card for a single transaction. The process doesn't take any longer, but I'm not happy about having my credit card number stored. It's like setting up a PayPal account in this way -- the transaction is set up so I become a Google customer, rather than a donor to a nonprofit.
- The service uses a shopping "metaphor." After you enter the donation and credit card info it says it's calculating shipping and tax (it actually hung at this point and I had to click Refresh). But then it recognizes that this is a donation and says "Click to process your donation."
- The receipt is a hybrid between a sale and donation. It lists a quantity of items (e.g., 1 donation) but has the right text for a tax receipt.
- The receipt only displays a limited amount of text. Mine said "This donation to the Z Space Studio and its programs (Word for Word, Youth Arts, Z Plays) is tax-deductible to the fullest..." Yes, it ended with ...
- I don't see a way to enter a comment, direct my gift, make a tribute gift, or set up a recurring donation.
posted by laura at 1:25 PM Permalink
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2 Comments:
This is an excellent summary, thanks. It's always nice to have one's own observations confirmed by an expert. My thinking is that it might be worth offering as an option next to other contribution processing methods, to get a little bit of benefit, sort of like asking donors to put a stamp on your business-reply envelopes back in the day. But it's ill-suited to be a primary or sole contribution processing method.
The decision to use a free or paid service really comes down to what type of donor experience you want to provide. With Google Checkout or PayPal, you have little control over the donor experience, which will lead to higher abandonment rates. With custom services, you have greater control over the donor experience, which leads to higher conversion rates.
And while I know there are mixed feelings about this issue, I think it's important to recognize that over 40 states do require registration for nonprofits conducting online fundraising campaigns in their states. This is one of the advantage of fundraising online through a donor advised fund, like Network for Good -- where we invest a significant amount of time complying with with state registration requirements in all 50 states + DC.
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