Network for Good

Vendor Site: www.networkforgood.org
Example Client: www.innocenceproject.org

Network for Good is a low-cost but completely un-customizable tool that could be a good choice for organizations interested in testing an online donation program. The extensive Network for Good branding gives the donor little doubt that they have left the organization’s website to make a donation on the Network for Good website.

Fees and Transaction Costs
Setup Fees: None Fees When Few Donations: Low Fees When Many Donations: Low

• 3% (updated: 4.75% as of 12/2007) of the donated amount with no setup or other fees
• $10.00 per donation via eCheck when the donor gives money only to one organization; $5 per eCheck donation charged to each organization when the donor make multiple donations to different organizations while on the Network for Good site

Merchant Account: Vendor’s

• The organization will use Network for Good’s merchant account
• The charge on the donor’s credit card shows that it was made to “Network for Good”

Company Background: Good

• Nonprofit that runs a “donation portal” where people can donate to any nonprofit listed in Guidestar
• They started taking online payments in 2001
• More than 4000 clients
• They are very active in the nonprofit community, with frequent conference appearances
• Network for Good has recently merged with Groundspring. They intend to continue supporting both of their online donation tools, which are fairly different in function.

Setup and Support: Good

• Inclusion in Guidestar is the only requirement: nonprofits just need to add a button to their site that links to their Network for Good donation page
• Support is available via email. A phone number also appears on the website

Donation Form Appearance: Acceptable

• The payment process cannot be integrated with the organization’s website; instead, donors click a “Donate via Network for Good” button and are taken to the Network for Good site to make their donation
• The donation form is very clean and professional
• Network for Good branding cannot be removed. In fact, fields for donating to Network for Good and signing up for their newsletter are a mandatory part of the donation process

Donation Form Flexibility: Acceptable

• No custom fields or donation-specific fields can be included, not even a newsletter sign-up or a program for a targeted donation
• Each organization can only have one donation form

Payment Processing: Excellent

• They commonly process Visa, Master Card, American Express and Discover
• They support recurring donations as a standard feature, and eChecks for an additional $5 or $10 per donation
• They do not support credit cards issued by banks outside North America
• Fraud prevention is a strength – they do a number of automatic and manual checks to try to flag and investigate anomalies

Reports & Data: Good

• A web-based administrative interface allows organizations to view and export donor information
• 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
• Network for Good 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

• Money is deposited directly into the organization’s bank account or mailed once a month