<p>Just wondering if anyone has thoughts/experience with setting up any account for accepting nonprofit donations. Here’s an article talking about PayPal, Amazon & Facebook.</p>
<p>Thanks for any feedback. I’m thinking of going with PayPal, since that’s the way we’ve done most of our on-line purchases, personally.</p>
<p>Anyone with experiences, thoughts, suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Our non-profit is quite small and likely to only get small donations. So far, our largest donations other than corporate sponsorships have been $150.</p>
<p>Thanks for any thoughts. Have sent a note to our bookkkeeper who specializes in non-profits.</p>
<p>Has it worked well for you & would you recommend it? Any caveats about using PayPal? It sounds pretty good to me & I’ve never had problems with them. I know that eBayers are generally pretty happy with PayPal as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great thread. I have forwarded it to our S (who does a lot with PayPal). I will also forward this to my bookkeeper. To me the take home message is to try to do more to protect ourselves by having a separate new checking or savings account with a minimal amount in it & sweep regularly into larger account so it doesn’t end up with much of a balance.</p>
<p>We recently changed hosting companies for our on-line sales. The new company would only accept PayPal. We were able to open a new bank account solely to link to the PayPal account. Every week or month (depending on the volume of transactions), I transfer funds from PayPal to this account. I can then easily go on-line and transfer funds between our regular bank accounts whenever needed. We are a non-profit, but since at various times, we have significant funds in the accounts, I didn’t want any link to PayPal on those accounts, no matter how secure. There is no charge for this account it we have less that 50 (I think) transactions per month and since we have no checking/debit card for it either. Even if I wanted to do transfers from PayPal on a daily basis, I still won’t hit the 50/month level.</p>
<p>We use Network for Good. Simple to set up, and good reporting. A very nice fringe benefit is that donors can take an option to pay the transaction fee – and somewhere between a third and a half of our donors do, which really helps, particularly with small donations. NfG also allows a donor to be anonymous if the donor chooses that option, and we get some each year who do. NfG handles the “receipt” issue, which is another benefit, though we also send a thank-you if the donor provides an address or email. </p>
<p>We got feedback from some folks who thought you needed a paypal account in order to make a donation through paypal, which I guess used to be true but isn’t any longer.</p>
<p>We received one donation from Network for Good, even tho we didn’t have an account with them. Will continue to explore & thanks for these ongoing insights.</p>