Different Types of Church Fundraisers
Church fundraising is a beneficial way to earn extra revenue for your church while also building a strong community. Church fundraising provides an effective way to reach out to the community for contributions as well as to spread the word about your organization. There are so many different types of fundraising that choosing the right one for your Church can be a challenging task. In this article we will talk about the different types of fundraising. We will also talk about how you can make fundraiser more successful by receiving credit and debit card donations.
Types of Church Fundraisers
Direct Sales Fundraiser Your Church Group orders an inventory of fundraising products to be sold by your volunteers. The product is provided to your volunteers who sell the product, deliver it, and collect payment, usually in one trip.
Brochure Sales Fundraiser This is also called Brochure Sales. Your Church Group volunteers are each provided a fundraising catalog to show potential donators and an order form. Supporters select products from the catalog and record the order on the order form. Once your members are done, all order forms are counted and sent to the fundraising company which ships the products to the contact person for your group fundraiser. Your members and volunteers then deliver the products to your supporters.
On-line Fundraiser On-line fundraising is generally handled in one of two ways. In the first, a personalized website for your group is created. You encourage donators to purchase products or services from that site and you receive a portion of sales. The second way is to have a coded link on your Church's website that will take the visitor to a personalized page on a company's product site. Again, you encourage supporters to make purchases through the coded link and your group receives a portion of the sales.
Special Event Fundraiser These types of fundraisers usually consist of setting up an event and inviting supporters to participate. Events such as dinners, plays, car washes, raffles, and auctions are common but there are lots more to consider.
Accepting Credit Card and Debit Card donations
Once you've setup your church fundraiser, you can ask for donations through your website, by email, on flyers or newsletters, and in written letters. Make sure to include good instructions on how donations can be made. Contributions could be a weekly offering, monthly withdrawal or a one-time contribution, depending on the member's choice.
To really streamline the process you could offer your donators the ability to contribute to the fundraiser using their credit card or debit card. This would allow them to easily make a donation without the hassle of dealing with cash. A lot of people don't carry cash anymore because it isn't convenient. Instead they carry credit cards.
To accept credit cards donations you would need a way to accept credit cards. There are lots of options including point of sale terminals, and online payment processing gateways.
In this article we talked about the different types of church fundraising and also how to make it easy for people to give with their credit and debit card.
This article was written by Todd Nelson, Marketing Director for Capital Merchant Solutions, Inc (www.holyprocessing.com). CMS has been in the merchant account business for nearly 10 years, and offers free merchant accounts to both online and retail businesses. This article may be republished as long as absolutely no changes are made, and the resource box is included. Copyright 2007 - Capital merchant Solutions, Inc. - All rights reserved.
Published June 1st, 2007
Filed in Business




