MemberClicks

Vendor Site: www.memberclicks.com
Example Client: www.nahj.org

With an interesting approach that provides organizations the tools to build their own custom donation forms and update them whenever they like, MemberClicks is a good, moderately priced option for those who don’t want to go through the vendor every time they’d like to make a change. At its heart, MemberClicks is an integrated database/ donation/ membership/ email solution, making it appealing to those who are looking to integrate donations into a larger picture.

Fees and Transaction Costs

Setup Fees: Low   Fees When Few Donations: High   Fees When Many Donations: Medium

• $100 setup fee
• $0.70 per donation, plus 1% of the donated amount, with a monthly minimum of $25
• The client organization needs to setup their own merchant account, which will require additional fees. Pricing for merchant accounts vary, but range 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: Organization’s

• The organization must use their own merchant account
• MemberClicks will help the organization to setup a merchant account if desired; they have relationships with several
• The charge on the donor’s credit card will be shown in the organization’s name

Company Background: Good

• Private company that provides an online membership management database, an associated form builder to handle payment processing for events, membership fees, and donations, and additional tools including email functionality
• They started taking online payments in 1998
• They have more than 1000 clients and about 20 employees

Setup and Support: Excellent

• MemberClicks provides a payment form builder that the organization can use to setup their own forms, and the MemberClicks staff will build the first three forms for free, if desired
• The form builder tool is cleanly laid out, but the complex functionality may feel imposing to the technology phobic
• Support is available via phone and email from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST. The website and the sales representative mentioned that customer service is a priority
• Several current clients report that service is responsible, knowledgeable, and helpful

Donation Form Appearance: Excellent

• The donation form can be tailored to the website, including the navigation, fonts and colors
• The organization can create clean and professional forms through the form builder, although they tend to look a little boxy
• A small MemberClicks logo at the bottom of the page can be removed for a $25 activation fee and $15/month

Donation Form Flexibility: Excellent

• The organization can add an unlimited number of custom fields through the form builder
• Organizations can tailor the amount and text shown for any standard donations
• MemberClicks supports tributes and memorials through custom fields
• Organizations can have as many donation forms as desired – for instance, to support different campaigns
• The form builder allows organizations to program in form logic, such as changing the values of a field based on the value picked in another. For example, donors to an environmental advocacy group who select Vermont as their state of residence might be presented with funding initiatives centered on protecting their “green mountains,” while donors who select California might be presented with some options that protect the Pacific Ocean and others that protect the Sierra Nevada
• They do not have any built in functionality to support premiums or employer matching

Payment Processing: Good

• They commonly process Visa, Master Card, and American Express and Discover, and can accommodate other cards available through the organization’s merchant account
• They can process credit cards issued by banks outside North America if the organization chooses a merchant account that supports this
• Recurring donations can be setup manually by the organization with one of the merchant account providers MemberClicks supports, but this cannot be handled automatically
• They support eChecks (provided the organization’s merchant account supports them)
• Address and CSV code credit card checks are available
• They report that they have scheduled downtime once per quarter (for two to three hours on Sunday night), and have had only very minimal unplanned downtime

Reports & Data: Good

• A web-based administrative interface allows organizations to view basic donor and transactional information
• Month-to-month or year-to-year comparisons are not available
• The admin tool is built more to support event registration than donations; viewing only those donations for a particular span of time, as opposed to all donations, takes a bit of work
• Data can be downloaded into a text file with customizable column headings
• MemberClicks does not offer any method to access data programmatically that would allow a programmer to build an automated feed to another database

Money Distribution: Excellent

• Money is deposited directly into the organization’s account within a few days after donation