Four Payment Processing Tips for Non-Profits

Adding payment processing to solutions to donor management and other non-profit software solutions presents challenges and potential benefits. It is important to integrate secure, reliable and functional payments into your software. Developers of these software solutions should consider these four helpful tips.

1.  Develop an Integrated Payments Option

The number of giving programs and non-profit payment services is growing, but these options may not provide the best rates or data necessary to build a donor database. It is preferable to an organization to have a software solution that has built-in payment processing capabilities rather than having to maintain a separate solution just for receiving donations.

2. 501(c) Status For Lower Rates

Find a payments partner that can support merchants with a 501(c) status. Organizations with 501(c) status may qualify for reduced merchant processing rates. This tax exempt status is primarily available to public charities and private foundations.

3. Support Tokenization and Omnichannel Payments

Non-profit payment software should account for the ways that donors tend to give to organizations. Adding Tokenization functionality to your software allows for repeated transactions such as monthly or annual donations. A non-profit can also work with a payment processing partner to accept a wider range of omnichannel payments. Recent trends in this industry include text-to-give campaigns and mobile applications. This payment infrastructure is also useful for hosting events where card-present donations will be accepted or merchandise sold.

4. Build a Secure Donor Database

One of the major benefits to developing a customized payment processing integration is the ability to gather donation data to build a donor database. A payment processing partner can work with the software provider to develop an integration that enables information such as names, addresses, emails and phone numbers to be stored.

Paragon Payment Solutions provides a variety of non-profit payment software integration options for donor management and other non-profit software solutions.

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