What is the best donation platform to use for an NGO or NFP?
Working mostly with small and large-scale NGOs/NFPs who try to improve the world around us, we are often presented with the objective of integrating donation platforms to fund their activities or projects.
There are many donation platform options, coming in an array of widgets, plugins and full web pages. Whether it is a cost involved in the set-up, a processing fee with every donation, or having limited branding options, they all come with their pros and cons, as well as a price. So which donation platform should you choose?
What makes a good donation platform?
There are a few different approaches to creating a donation page. The first step is to find a donation platform that meets your requirements:
- Do you need to include gift aid?
- Do you want a dashboard to see your donation analytics?
- Do you want the platform to look like part of your brand?
- Do you need both one-off payments and recurring donations?
When it comes to taking payments, the process should be as smooth as possible. For example, you should avoid asking for too much information – especially if it’s irrelevant for the purpose of the donation – and offer different payment methods, e.g. PayPal, card payment, Apple Pay, etc. In addition, the platform you choose needs to be secure, and if it has the same look and feel as your brand and website, it will make the experience smoother.
In terms of costs, look out for platforms that allow you to maximise donations while avoiding high platform and processing fees.
So what options are out there?
1. JustGiving
This is a top-rated donation platform used by over 20,000 charities, e.g. Unicef, Little Princess Trust and British Heart Foundation. In the UK, charities will pay a monthly subscription fee for their Grow Plan. If your charity receives less than £15,000 per year through the platform, the price is £15 +VAT per month. If an NGO/charity raises over £15,000, it’s £39 +VAT per month. In addition, they have a processing fee of 1.9% + 20p, and then if the donation has Gift Aid, they take 5% as a processing fee.
What is included in their Just Giving Grow Plan?
You can create a donation page with your charity's branding with the Grow Plan. This donation page would be on a slightly different URL to your website, e.g. if Liquid Light had one, the URL would be something like www.donate.liquidlight.co.uk. Not too far from your URL, but you might prefer to incorporate it within your website (e.g. www.liquidlight.co.uk/donate),
With Just Giving, you have access to a dashboard where you can see all your donations and campaigns. You can customise your dashboard and change settings, like setting up summary notifications to be delivered to you on a weekly or monthly basis.
Pros
- Well-known platform
- Low monthly costs
- Reporting dashboard
- Brand logo and colours can be added
Cons
- Takes a card processing fee, plus a service fee for gift aid
- Separate domain/URL
2. CAF Donate
CAF Donate was set up by a charity, Charities Aid Foundation, and is now used by over 160,000 small to medium-sized charities. CAF prioritises low monthly and processing fees.
It has an easy-to-use interface, with basic options for branding. You can add your logo, colour and own text description. However, the downside is that it’s not easily integrated on your website. When users click the donate button on your website, it feels clear that they are leaving your site and heading to a processing platform, which might not be as pretty as your website. Plus, the link to your donating page will be www.cafdonate.NAME.com.
This platform does have a widget that can be embedded on your website, clearly displaying the different donation options, but once the user clicks they will go to the CAF Donate website. You can add a description of what the money will be used for. For example, £20 can lead to a child being fed for a month. From a user's perspective, it's great to know what their donation can do.
CAF Fees
They require a one-off payment of 4% of the total donation, including any Gift Aid. For regular contributions, CAF takes 2% of the donation amount, with a minimum charge of 20p per donation. Any donation above £250.00 has a max of £5.00 deducted, so as an NGO/Charity, it is worth knowing your most frequent donation amount.
They also charge a Direct Debit set-up fee:
- £1.00 for every paperless confirmation
- £1.50 for paper confirmations.
So, after all that math, what does an NGO/charity receive from a £20 donation?
For one-off donations, if you donate £20, Gift Aid adds £5 to make £25 total, but the charity receives £24 after a 4% processing fee of £1. For regular payments like £20 monthly over a year, each £20 donation becomes £25 with Gift Aid, incurs a 2% fee of £0.50 per payment plus a one-off £1 charge, so from the total £300 donated (including Gift Aid), the charity ultimately receives £293.
Pros
- No monthly fee paid to CAF
- You can embed a widget onto your website.
- Processes Gift-Aid
Cons
- The URL will include the name of their platform
- For recurring payments, you have to pay a one-off processing payment.
3. Enthuse
Enthuse provides different integration options for your website. A donation page that you can customise with your brand colours and logo, a CMS extension (depending on the CMS you use), or you can also use their API. Furthermore, it gives you an option for both one-off and monthly donations, and it handles Gift Aid.
A strong benefit of Enthuse is that you can embed the donation form straight to your website without needing a different URL. The platform will automatically capture and process Gift Aid information on your behalf, saving you admin time.
Have we found the perfect donation platform? What are the downsides to Enthuse?
The platform costs £39.99 per month, but on the plus side, you aren’t charged processing fees. So you know that it’s only £39.99 a month, and not an added amount of top for the charity.
They have a Tipping model for users. However, from looking at reviews online, it seems that donors could be charged 12.5% on top of the donation for ‘handling fees’, which can seem like a lot. So for a £30 donation (without gift aid), the charity will receive the total amount, BUT the donor will pay £3.75 on top of this. This may look like a small amount, but increase that to a £500 donation, that's an extra £62.50 on top.
Pros
- Form that can be embedded on your website
- No processing fees for charities
- Handles Gift Aid, one-off payments and registrations
Cons
- A potentially large handling fee for donors
4. Create your own
In the best-case scenario, a donation platform has all of the following advantages:
- Small fees - we want to maximise the amount of money donated
- Minimum time managing donations - we all know that time equals money
- Doesn’t take users away from your site
- Fits in with your branding
- Simple payment structure
So can you create your own ‘donation platform’ and have it all?
For one of our clients, we designed a donation page that allows a user to make a single donation, set up recurring payments and find details for a direct bank transfer. This allowed us to use all the branding and components we already have available on the website, not taking the user away to an external site. It took some development and testing but the outcome is smooth and simple for the client, as well as users donating to the NGO.
You can choose a payment gateway company with small processing fees, e.g. Stripe or World Bank, cutting out the middle person and having no monthly fees to a donation platform. For our client, we used Stripe.
What is Stripe?
Stripe is a popular payment platform that all businesses can use. You can directly integrate their payment platform on your website and set it up to suit your charity needs. The interface is smooth for the user donating, and it works well on web browsers and mobile.
There are two types of payments you can collect with Stripe – one-off payments or recurring payments. These have to be two separate payment links, so it may be the case that you have two forms or two pages on your site directing to them.
Payment links allow you to set up donation payments without adding any code to your website. You can then share this link on your social media channels too.
Stripe offers discounted processing fees for non-profit organisations and charities when they accept more than 80% of their donations through Stripe. Note that Stripe won’t retroactively apply the discount, so ensure you set up using this discount.
When you receive a donation, it will automatically be sent to your Stripe account. You can select how frequently payments are made to your chosen bank account.
One downside is that, although you can modify and customise the details and descriptions that the payment links show, you can’t edit the wording of ‘Subscribe’ on recurring donations.
What about Gift Aid?
You can claim Gift Aid as a charity directly online, or you can use eligible software. Plus, you may be able to use your accountant or financial advisor to help you with this.
Pros
- Popular payment platform
- High support platform
Cons
- Separate links for a one-off payment and monthly payment
- ‘Subscribe’, not ‘donate’ as the call-to-action button
- You need to be able to create your own donation page
Conclusion
Choosing the right donation platform ultimately depends on your NGO's specific needs, budget, and technical capabilities. While established platforms like JustGiving and CAF Donate offer convenience and built-in features, like Gift Aid processing, they come with ongoing fees that can eat into your donations.
As a web design agency, we prefer the ‘create your own’ option. If you use a CMS, it should be straightforward to create your own donation page. TYPO3, the CMS we use, makes it very easy to set up your own page and utilise a payment platform, e.g. Stripe for one-off and monthly payments.
Remember, the best donation platform is the one that maximises both donor satisfaction and the funds that reach your cause, whilst being cost effective and reducing admin time for your organisation. If you need advice and support in building a custom donation platform for your NGO or charity, don't hesitate to get in touch.
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Cristina Muñoz
Digital Account Manager
