Articles

Church fundraising is a great way to earn extra revenue for your church while also building member relationships. Church fundraising provides an effective way to reach out to the community for support as well as to spread the word about your organization. There are so many different types of fundraising that choosing the right one for your Church can be a daunting task. In this article we will talk about the different types of fundraising. We will also talk about how you can make your fundraiser better by accepting credit and debit card donations.

Types of Church Fundraisers

Direct Sales Fundraiser Your Church Group gets an inventory of fundraising products to be sold by your volunteers. The product is provided to your volunteers who sell the product, deliver it, and collect payment, usually in one trip.

Brochure Sales Fundraiser This is also called Brochure Sales. Your Church Group volunteers are each provided a fundraising brochure to show potential donators and an order form. Contributors select products from the brochure and record the order on the order form. Once your members are done, all order forms are counted and sent to the fundraising company which ships the products to the contact person for your group fundraiser. Your members and volunteers then deliver the products to your supporters.

On-line Fundraiser On-line fundraising is generally handled in one of two ways. In the first, a unique website for your church is created. You encourage donators to purchase products or services from that site and you receive a portion of sales. The second way is to have a coded link on your organization's website that will take the visitor to a personalized page on a company's product site. Again, you encourage supporters to make contributions through the coded link and your group receives a portion of the sales.

Special Event Fundraiser These types of fundraisers usually consist of setting up an event and inviting supporters to participate. Events such as dinners, plays, car washes, raffles, and auctions are common but there are lots more to consider.

Accepting Credit Card and Debit Card contributions

Once you've successfully setup your church fundraiser, you can ask for contributions through your website, by email, on flyers or newsletters, and in written letters. Make sure to include good instructions on how contributions can be made. Contributions could be a weekly offering, monthly withdrawal or a one-time donation, depending on the member's choice.

To really speed up the process you could offer your donators the ability to contribute to the fundraiser using their credit card. This would allow them to easily make a contribution without the hassle of dealing with cash. A lot of people don't carry cash anymore because it isn't convenient. Instead they carry credit cards and debit cards.

To accept credit cards contributions you would need a way to process credit cards. There are lots of options including point of sale terminals, and online payment processing gateways.

In this article we talked about the different types of church fundraising and also how to make it easy for people to support with their credit and debit card.