Questions and ANSWERS.

We can build your site in about a week. It is a question of scheduling as much as anything. When the wind is at our backs, we can create one in just 2-3 days.

The site costs $700 for us to set up. If you would like online payment processing, you have a monthly fee $14.95. Online payments provide convenience to donors and bring in more pledge dollars by reducing your pledge attrition rate.

While you could just use your site to accept secure pledges online, allowing payments on those pledges reduces missed payments. And with our e-check (ACH) option of just 19 cents per payment, it makes a great deal of sense to allow online payments.

No two are the same. Our system features a consistent framework that we build upon (to enable the site to reconfigure itself based on screen size). The fonts and that basic structure are set. But within that, we can modify many options and the graphical look of your site will very much look like your campaign printed materials translated to the web. It is not uncommon for the capital campaign site to look better than our client’s normal site; people love our sites.

Yes it can. Our approach translates well to annual appeal use and we have clients that commission a new site each year to bring their annual appeal to the web.

No, GivingTools campaign sites are hosted by us in a secure environment. Our system does not enable our customers to host the site themselves.

While our system does not support custom urls, you can point a custom domain to your site if you wish. For example, browse to www.buildzeum.com, and you will see a sample site hosted in our system. But if you just use the default url from us (GivingSites.com/xxxxx) you can can have just about anything after the slash. We’ll work with you to get a domain that works well for your effort.

We get this question a lot. We negotiated the lowest rates possible with CardConnect (our integrated payments processor) because we want to offer a giving platform that is affordable to charitable organizations. We want you to be able to use GivingTools whether you are small or large—and for small and large donations as well. The rates you see really are the rates...there are no added percentages on top of them or some special scenario you have to fit into to qualify for the rates on GivingTools.com.

You are billed on the second of the following month. Your bank account is debited for the monthly fee and transaction fees for activity that occurred in the prior month. This includes your monthly fee and your transaction fees. This is only if you have online payment processing set up. If you are only accepting secure pledges (no payments), there is no monthly expense.

GivingTools has negotiated very good terms with CardConnect, our integrated payments processor.
Here is a run-down of some standard scenarios and the fees you can expect:

Batch Fee
This would be the fee to batch your transactions each day. There is no batch fee with GivingTools/CardConnect.

Monthly Minimum
This is when a minimum volume of activity is not met. There is no monthly minimum with GivingTools/CardConnect.

ACH High Ticket Surcharge
This is a fee for e-Check/ACH transactions over $5,000. There is no high ticket surcharge with GivingTools/CardConnect.

On File Fee
This is a monthly fee to keep your account open. The $14.95 monthly fee you pay keeps your account open and also provides you with access to the GivingTools system. There is no ongoing fee in addition to this.

Return Charge Fee
CardConnect debits its fees on the second of each month. If CardConnect attempts to get its fees but there is not enough money in your account, the fee is $35.

Bounce Check Fee
If you process a check electronically and it bounces, the fee is $8.

Charge Back
Fee debited if a customer declares a debit was not authorized: $35.

PCI Non Compliance Fee
This one is entirely avoidable (See “How long does the PCI process take?”). By filling out your online questionnaire, you will be PCI compliant. If you fail to do that, there is a PCI Non Compliance Fee of $39.95/month. Frankly, even with that fee, you’d still be paying less than the cost of most online giving services, but why pay it if you don’t have to?

When you sign up for CardConnect as part of activating GivingTools campaign website, you become a customer of CardConnect, too. Your CardConnect account is a full-fledged credit card processing account, complete with its own detailed transactions, detail reports, and even a virtual terminal you can use to process cards for any purpose. Or, you can get a terminal from CardConnect (at added cost) and use it to process cards in your thrift shop or other physical store. Yes, all at the same low rates.

These two products, through visually similar, were developed separately. Right now, while one CardConnect account can power both products, they each have their own reporting engine. Your CardConnect reports will, however, show transactions from both products and deposits for both products can use the same bank account. It is much the same if you use your CardConnect account to power an e-commerce store or a physical terminal—those transactions will not be tracked by GivingTools online giving either.

We work with your campaign consultant to successfully deliver your message in a way that meshes with their methodology. If you do not have a consultant, we do our best to keep you in safe waters, but nothing compares to a solid feasibility study (to set an attainable goal) and steady guidance that coordinates your volunteers and deepens their commitment to your cause. If you need a consultant, we might be able to offer some recommendations.

Just email us at sales@givingtools.com and we’ll give you a concrete answer to any further questions you may have.