Is Your Payment Gateway Optimized for Online Fundraising?

Without the right payment gateway solution, you could be losing out on gifts and spending way too much in fees. Here’s how to fix that.

One of the most common problems nonprofits have when they begin online fundraising is not having the right payment gateway setup. 

Payment gateways are part of the behind-the-scenes technology that make online gifts possible.

Since it’s all under-the-hood, it’s not always easy to know if you’ve got the best solution for your nonprofit. 

Besides that, most nonprofit professionals have better things to do than dive into the inner workings of online payment transactions. But first…

What do payment gateways do?

And in case you don’t know what a payment gateway is (like most normal people), Wikipedia defines a payment gateway as a merchant service that “facilitates a payment transaction by the transfer of information between [your giving page] and the… acquiring bank.”

Basically, payment gateways are internet robot couriers that facilitate the communication between your donor’s card issuer and the banks involved in the transaction.

It’s the hidden technology that assures your donor’s bank that this is a legitimate transaction and helps facilitate the transaction.

So how do you make sure you’ve got the right payment gateway setup?

Optimizing Your Payment Gateway

Besides the obvious issue of making online gifts possible, your payment gateway should provide you with several other benefits.

If your payment gateway isn’t giving you these great benefits, consider making a change to get the most out of your online giving.

Low Processing Rates

Payment gateways and merchant service companies, the two key technologies that facilitate online transactions, make money the moment transactions occur by charging anywhere from 1 to 5 percent of the monetary value for each transaction.

Your payment gateway typically doesn’t cost you a penny until you receive income in the form of a gift. 

This pay-as-you-go system is beautiful. 

With the barrier-of-entry so low, pretty much all nonprofits can begin raising money online immediately.

But payment gateway processing fees (even as low as they seem to be) add up fast. 

And the more successful you are at fundraising, the more you’ll pay in processing fees.

That’s why you need a payment gateway with the best rates possible.

Unfortunately, most nonprofit leaders I’ve spoken don’t know where to start to find a better transaction processing rate for each online gift transaction. 

Like any other product or service, you can find a better deal by shopping around. 

That’s why RaiseDonors gives you the option of two world-leading payment gateways. 

With RaiseDonors, you can use Stripe or Authorize.net, allowing you to:

1. Have backup gateways ready to go if a gateway is offline for any reason,
2. Support multiple currencies, configuring a gateway per currency, and
3. Have flexibility in gateway fees.

Authorize.net and Stripe both have different processing fees for nonprofit organizations. So your fees can change depending on which one you choose.

For more information on configuring RaiseDonors and your payment gateway, see our knowledgebase article.

Choosing a Merchant Services Provider

But there is another player involved in online transactions who will charge a fee each time a gift is made: your merchant account provider.

Recently, we partnered with one of the best global merchant service providers, EVO, to give our customers the best processing rates possible!

With EVO, you can use Authorize.net as both your gateway and your merchant account to easily accept online gifts⁠—but at a much better rate.

This partnership has saved our customers thousands of dollars per month by simply switching their merchant account services over to EVO.

Another really cool feature is that with Authorize.net and EVO, you can receive online gifts in multiple currencies. 

No need to worry if your donor is in the United States, Canada, or even across the pond! 

Because RaiseDonors is an EVO payments partner, if you want to experience these incredibly low processing fees, we can get you switched over easily and quickly. 

Just contact us and we’ll take care of the rest! 

Customer Support

Another feature you’ll need with your payment gateway is customer support. 

If your donors start getting errors on their screen, do you know where to go for answers? 

Who should you talk to when gifts stop “going through”?

It’s a rare thing to need to talk with someone at a payment gateway support desk – but when it happens, you need to talk with someone NOW.

RaiseDonors customers have access to 24/7 customer support.

If there’s ever a problem, we have direct access to the amazing support team at EVO. 

That means when you experience a catastrophic problem, you can contact us right away.

If it’s something we can’t handle, we have direct access to EVO’s payment gateway support team 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

Believe me, we’ve had to call them before, and they’re quick, reliable, and accurate. We LOVE working with these guys.

With EVO and RaiseDonors, you can rest assured that you’ll get answers and solutions to your tech support requests quickly.

High Security

While there are numerous benefits to using RaiseDonors and EVO as your online giving solution, the final big one is security.

Your donors are trusting you with their most delicate personal information. 

Bad actors, like hackers, know your donor is most vulnerable for attack when they send their banking or credit card information through a giving page. 

Everyday, they create new ways to steal donor identities, bank information, and passwords.

That’s why RaiseDonors is diligent about protecting our customers’ donors from these kinds of attacks.

All donor and gift data is secured with SHA-256 RSA-encrypted keys. This is the highest encryption level available. 

Our payment partner, EVO, is just as committed to your donor’s safety.

They, too, use high-level security features and practices to protect your donors’ information as it passes through their system.

Honestly, we really enjoy seeing just how fanatical EVO is about data security. RaiseDonors’ customers never have to worry if they’re getting the best in online security.

Your Optimized Payment Gateway Solution

We know things like payment gateways and merchant accounts may seem like topics for geeks like us.

But they’re important to protecting your donors, your nonprofit’s reputation, and your bottom line.

With EVO and RaiseDonors, optimizing your payment gateway for online fundraising is easy.

We’ll make sure you get the best rates possible, extraordinary customer service, and the highest security tools available. 

If you don’t have your payment gateway and merchant account optimized yet, contact us today!