Hello from Los Gatos!
Sometimes the hardest part is convincing your board that it's a good idea
to accept cards. It was for me...
Our context: We do art, history and nature in a small (but lovely!) town in
Silicon Valley (CA). We have a $100k annual budget, of which half comes from
potential credit card sources: annual fund drive, memberships, store
sales and special events. (Free admission for us.)
We are (finally) seeking a credit card processor, as my treasurer saw it
work for us after I tried many ways to show her the logic in
it... we had never taken cards in the past (the cost was "too high") etc. -
all arguments were used to resist. (She is a marvel with numbers and I would
never want to replace her, so I had to find a way around her resistance.)
For our recent special event, I (went around her and) found a way to get cc
capability; our Chamber of Commerce processed the charges and did not charge us
a fee. She could not say no to that deal... of the $13k we raised, over half -
$9k - was put on cards! Some folks had spent their all their cash on the bar and
raffle tickets. One of my own board members had brought NO checks - to a
fund-raiser!
Since our treasurer had to do it all by hand (ugh!), she is now a convert
and we will soon have regular cc capability.
My 2 cents! - in cash for that amount - Laura Bajuk, E.D. Museums of Los
Gatos