One of my colleagues is a consultant who works a great deal with helping nonprofits assess and implement technology tools.  When posed with this question he offered the following response:

 

TechSoup has lots of articles on this topic in their Learning center:
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/funding/index.cfm
In particular, check out "Selecting an Online Donation Tool" Parts 1 & 2,
and "Online Donations: Sorting Out the Chaos." I also recommend Affinity
Resources' chart of online donation vendors:
http://www.affinityresources.com/pgs/awz55Online2.shtml

The Affinity Resources site has links to the vendors. Some of the options,
like JustGive, Network for Good, and Paypal's basic service, have no monthly
or startup fees, though they tend to be bare-bones services. Google
Checkout is completely free for now but will start charging at some point
(their web site says 2009, but one site using them told me it would be early
2008). Note that the Affinity Resources site links to info about the
commercial version of Google Checkout. The nonprofit version is at
http://checkout.google.com/seller/npo/?gsessionid=i-TT1h5-KoM

I have a checklist of questions to consider when choosing an online donation
vendor here:
http://www.rlweiner.com/clf/online_donations_checklist.pdf
and links to articles about online fundraising here:
http://rlweiner.com/resources.html#fundraising

Robert
__________________________

Robert L. Weiner Consulting
Strategic Technology Advisors to Nonprofit and Educational Institutions
San Francisco, CA

 

With best regards,

 

Amy

 

Amy J. Phillips

Gift Registrar

Smithsonian Institution

1000 Jefferson Drive SW, 4th Floor

Washington, DC 20013-7012

[log in to unmask]

202-633-5072 (Phone)

202-786-2516 (Fax)

Mail to:  PO Box 37012, MRC-035

              Washington, DC 20560-0035

 

Become part of the Smithsonian experience and subscribe now to Smithsonian Focus, a free monthly e-newsletter: http://go.si.edu/smithsonian/join

From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gayle
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 5:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Online Giving

 

 

Info I wrote for an office newsletter recently is contained below.  Hope it helps.

 

v      ?  A quality resource in the philanthropic community is GuideStar.  Registration is free, but you must register to use their service.  Once you have done so, you can query nonprofits and find more about their mission and the types of services they provide.  In addition, GuideStar has recently made an announcement it is making charitable giving easier and is now acting as a conduit for philanthropy.  It’s another resource through which you can channel donations you might like to make.  By the way, GuideStar also has a very informative. free newsletter it regularly generates, and those involved with nonprofits may wish to subscribe to this resource.

 

http://www.guidestar.org/

 

http://www.guidestar.org/DisplayArticle.do?articleId=1185

Erica Holthausen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

All:

 

We are looking into adding an online gift giving option to our website. Given our budget constraints, we are hoping to do this at a very low (or better yet, no) cost. What are others using? Are there any benefits or drawbacks I should be thinking about before going forward? Does anyone have experience using the free version of Network for Good?

 

I’d appreciate any advice you have on the matter!

 

Erica A. Holthausen

Development and Community Relations

Museums of Old York

207 York Street

P.O. Box 312

York, ME 03909

 

(207) 363-4974

www.oldyork.org

 

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