Receiving Donations Using PayPal
PayPal can be an effective way for charities to receive donations as well as collecting subscriptions and selling fundraising items through your websites.
Services such as Just Giving, provide an excellent service but do charge a fee.
PayPal usually charges 3.5% plus 20p per payment, but for charities you can sign up to the reduced rate of 1.4% plus 20p. Details are at Paypal’s charity pages.If you use PayPal, I recommend that you register for the charity rate, if you haven’t already.
You can further increase the amount of your donations through the GiftAid scheme, which is possible through PayPal. To do this you need to collect the person’s address and ensure that they are have opted that they qualify for GiftAid. To qualify for GiftAid you need to have paid in Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax must at least equal the amount of GiftAid you claim in each year. You can find out more at the Government’s tax website.
How we have used PayPal to collect donations:
The most simple method is to have two buttons, one for GiftAid donations and one for non-GiftAid donations. We can, however, use it more imaginatively.
For Maternity Worldwide we have created a form which allows people to purchase a gift certificate, this is especially popular for Mothers’ Day. After you have completed the form you are directed through to PayPal to make the donation.
We have also created a very simple show using PayPal buttons.
For Brighton and Hove Art Council we have used a similar form for people to pay their donations online. This will hopefully cut down on trips to the bank with cheques and persuade more people to renew their subscriptions. All the subscription details are stored in the website.
Contact us for support with Paypal
PayPal isn’t the easiest website to get your head around, so if you need any help and advice please contact Mark at SCIP on 01273 234 049 or email [email protected].
Just one final point – security is important, so make sure you use a complicated password for your PayPal account. If I ever need to log into a PayPal account I always ask people to either give me the password directly, or send it via text.
