5 Simple Steps to Receive Online Charity Donations
75The following are simple steps to receive online charity donations: applying for tax exemption, building a website, securing your server, creating your organization’s online data sheet, and building a marketing scheme.
With the rise in competition among charitable organizations, it is crucial that you take advantage of every opportunity to raise your funds in order to keep your charity going. Since most people nowadays turn to the Internet for almost every sort of information, keep in mind that potential donors are no exception. So, along with running your organization, you also need to know how to request for donations through the Internet.
Apply for tax exemption
Determine if your charity organization is already exempted from taxes, if not, then work for a 501©3 status of your organization. Give your lawyer a call and ask for his help regarding this matter. Having a tax-exempt status will allow the contributors of your organization to be made known for the donations they have given to your charity, like so, giving merit to the contributors.
Build a website
It is crucial that you create a website for your organization because this will be the main tool you will use in running your fund-raising activities, such as Charity Auctions. The website should contain all important information about your organization, such as its mission, goals and funding. Your organization’s website will be the medium in which you will be processing online contributions of your donors. If you are not knowledgeable about creating websites, there are several free tutorials on the Internet that you can learn from. However, you can save more time and probably have a much better website if you just hire an expert web designer. You can even try to ask for free services from the website developer since what you are trying to accomplish is for charity.
Secure your server
With all the online thieves and hackers around the globe and your contributors’ financial transactions, it is only sensible that you secure every penny of your contributor’s donations. Thus, you need to be certain that the server of your host is secured or has a security encryption. Do not even try to work on this yourself, unless you are an expert. It is best to talk about this topic with the host of your website and ask for his help. You may also have to inform him of your objective and talk over with each other the choices on how the online donations will be received. Receiving donations via the Internet can be done in a number of different ways. There are hosts that produce protected and encrypted emails containing details of credit cards. Meanwhile, other hosts work with credit card companies to provide more security in the transactions made on your website.
Create your organization’s online data sheet
You need to create a data sheet in your website, which will receive the essential details of the contributions via the Internet. This data sheet should include details such as the name of the donor, address and phone number, the amount of the donation, the mode of payment, as well as any suggestions or comments that the donor may have. In addition, it should also be mentioned in the data sheet or its preceding page that donating is a choice.
Build a marketing scheme
Obviously, if people have no idea that your charity organization exists, none of them would be donating any amount of money. Thus, you need to make your organization known as much as possible. You can disseminate the information about your organization by having your website’s address printed on all direct mail items, solicitation letters, newsletters, and marketing materials. You can also have the choices for your online donations mentioned in a commercial or advertisement. Additionally, have a prominent link attached to your website’s online donation form.
Running a charitable organization that depends on the financial support of outsiders requires you to become transparent with all your organization’s operations. This is because your donors would want to know and be confident that their money is actually put into good use. And thus, if they feel any bit of doubt about your charity, they would most certainly refrain from donating any more money in the future and could discourage other people. What is a good cause for if your reputation is flawed, right?
Au fait Level 7 Commenter 6 months ago
It's fairly complicated to file for a 501c3 so I would recommend people interested in doing this look for a lawyer that does this on a regular basis. Not all lawyers are well informed in all things. It's humanly impossible to know the law in all areas, so when seeking a lawyer it's usually a good idea to seek out a lawyer who handles the sort of legal services you need on a regular basis.
Most lawyers will accept your money rather than recommending a different lawyer to handle whatever your issue might be, so you really need to inform yourself before looking for the best lawyer for you -- not so different from other consumer products/services. I know the world of lawyers because I worked as a legal assistant for over 10 years.
The reason you need to be a 501c3 or one of the other tax exempt organizations if you are hoping to receive donations for any reason is that if you are NOT a tax exempt organization your contributors cannot take tax deductions for their contributions to your organization. They are less likely to give in that case and more likely to be suspicious of you and your organization.
Everyone should remember that when giving to any organization, it's a good idea to check their 990 form and ask how much of their revenue goes to their mission and how much to expenses. The rule of thumb is ideally 90% goes to mission and 10% to administration and fund raising. Absolutely no more than 20% should go to administration/fund raising. There are a lot of scams out there calling themselves charities when really it's a charity for the person who started it so they don't have to work. Be an informed consumer -- do your homework.