Charged Contribution

Vendor Site: www.chargedcontribution.com/
Example Client: www.letfreedomring.com/

Charged Contribution is a solid tool, but expensive for what it offers, particularly if using their merchant account.It specializes in conservative causes, which may make it worth consideration by those who have trouble working with other donation tools that focus on progressive causes. For most organizations, there are better options.

Fees and Transaction Costs
Setup Fees: Low Fees When Few Donations: High Fees When Many Donations: Medium - High

• $99.95 setup fee
• Monthly fee of $39.95/month
• If using Charged Contribution’s merchant account, they charge 7% of the donated amount
• Organizations can also use their own merchant account. Pricing for merchant accounts vary, but ranges from about 3.3% per transaction to $50/month and 2.1% per transaction. A gateway monthly fee (typically about $25) would apply as well

Merchant Account: Either

• Organization can use their own merchant account, but they typically use Charged Contribution’s
• If the organization is using their own merchant account, the charge on the donor’s credit card will be shown in the organization’s name
• If using Charged Contribution’s merchant account, the charge will show up on the donor’s credit card as made to “ChargedContribution.com”

Company Background: Good

• Charged Contribution is a product of GXS Consulting, a private consulting firm that develops internet and software applications for small and medium sized businesses
• They focus on conservative organizations and political candidates. They may decline to work with clients who depart too far from this focus; a representative gave the example of Planned Parenthood as an organization with which they would prefer not to work
• They started taking online payments in 1998
• They have 100 - 200 clients, and about 10 employees

Setup and Support: Good

• Charged Contribution staff will setup the donation form based on the organization’s needs in about two days
• Any substantial changes to the donation form after the initial setup will be billed at an hourly rate
• Support is available via phone and email 24 hours a day

Donation Form Appearance: Excellent

• The donation form is completely tailored to the website, including the navigation, colors, and fonts
• The standard donation form is very clean, friendly, and well-designed
• A small Charged Contribution logo appears at the bottom of the form

Donation Form Flexibility: Good

• The organization can choose from a number of fields that have been built into the module, including a set of checkboxes with customizable labels
• Additional customization is possible for an additional charge

Payment Processing: Acceptable

• Commonly process Visa, Master Card, American Express and Discover
• They do not support recurring donations or eChecks
• They have not done address or CSV code credit card checks in the past
• They report that downtime is very rare – always in the seconds or minutes

Reports & Data: Good

• A web-based administrative interface allows organizations to view donor information by date
• Month-to-month or year-to-year comparisons are not available
• The data can be downloaded into a CSV text file; no customization of this file is available
• Charged Contribution does not offer any method to access data programmatically that would allow a programmer to build an automated feed to another database

Money Distribution: Good

• If the organization is using their own merchant account, money is deposited directly into the organization’s merchant account within a few days after donation
• Money is deposited directly into the organization’s bank account once a month if they are using the Charged Contribution merchant account