Three Reasons Your Church Should Look Into ContinueToGive

I have just returned from three weeks of travel, including a week at Iona Abbey in Scotland. You can read some of my reflections on that time here, keep an eye out for more to come.

There’s more to come because my time at Iona helped to crystalize a lot of things that have been swirling around in my head. Right now there are two major conversations happening in our culture which heavily impact the work I do with churches. The first is the conversation about how the church needs to change/not-change in the midst of our changing American society. The second is the conversation about how our entire society is changing as a result of technology.

Right in the intersection of these two conversations is where I find myself and the work we do here at Soren. It’s my conviction, and I’ll be writing a lot more about this in the coming days and weeks, that theologically the church is well-prepared, and even leading the charge, for a lot of the cultural changes that today’s technology is bringing about. On the other hand, technologically churches, and unfortunately many of the business that make technology for churches, have struggled to keep up.

So it’s a breath of fresh air to find a business that is prepared to help churches move ahead of the curve instead of lag behind.

Just before I left for my travels abroad, I had a great conversation with Abigail Schulz from ContinueToGive. ContinueToGive is a Wisconsin based business that offers innovative solutions for churches and non-profits wanting to accept electronic gifts or engage in an electronic fundraising campaign. They aren’t the only options in that field, and you might immediately think of some of their bigger named competitors like PayPal or GoFundMe. But I’m going to give you three reasons why I think it’s worth your time to partner with ContinueToGive as your electronic giving gateway.

1. They Are Invested In The Success of Churches

ContinueToGive isn’t offering a commercial product that has been retro-fitted to church or non-profit work. Their primary mission is to serve churches and non-profits, so their entire philosophy of business has the specific needs of churches in mind. Whether it be the range of services they offer (see point 2), their verification process which assures your members and donors that their money is going to the right place, or the helpful advice they provide to help your succeed in using electronic giving to its greatest potential, they are developing resources that are specifically tailored to churches and ministries. They understand some of the challenges that churches face in getting started with a electronic giving, such as a lack of technological know-how or resistance to change. By offering online giving on a “service” through their web platform, they cut down on the work of configuring your account (a simple link will connect people with your donation pages, no need to worry about using HTML forms or JavaScript on your site). And by creating a database of “pre-filled” profiles corresponding to certified non-profits, ContinueToGive is able to assure donors that they are safe and that your church will actually get the money they’ve donated. And since their entire mission and business is focused around ministries and non-profits, they offer a unique set of insights into how to succeed at electronic giving that is informed by the way churches operate (and how that’s different from a tech startup or an online store).

2. They Offer Services Their Competitors Can’t

In keeping with that emphasis on churches, ContinueToGive has a few unique services that you won’t find from PayPal or GoFundMe.

The most prominent such feature is their Kiosk Giving service. What makes their Kiosk service unique is that it is app-based instead of hardware based. You don’t need to purchase a device from them, you download a free (and very well rated) app for either iOS or Android and can use it on any Apple or Android tablet. They’ll even provide a free stand for you to use to mount your new Kiosk in a strategic location at your church. This provides a very easy way for people to donate in person using their credit or debit card, which avoids the inevitable “oh I was going to do that but I forgot…” cycle that many electronic giving campaigns struggle with.

ContinueToGive also offers the ability to integrate your online giving profile with your Facebook page and with a scannable QR code you can include in print materials for people to easily find your giving profile using their smartphones. This is great for your bulletin or for your stewardship mailings.

These great features are things you won’t find from most payment gateway or crowdfunding services. They also work perfectly for the use-case of a church, where in-person giving is likely to be encouraged as part of your normal weekly worship.

3. They Offer Value That Beats The Competition

The third place where ContinueToGive really stands out is in their pricing. Recognizing that their work is a ministry, they have figured out how to ensure their clients get the most value from their service. By dividing the cost of processing your transactions between “e-checks” and “credit cards” they are able to offer you much better transaction rates (e-checks can be as low as 0.5% + $0.30, which is an 80% reduction on the PayPal non-profit rate). The monthly account fee is free if you have less than $500 in donations in a given month, and then is automatically calculated for you each month based on your donation volume (the highest rate being $104/month for both the platform and your merchant account if you raised more than $20,000 that month). This is highly competitive: miles better than the rates of any major payment gateway or crowdfunding platform out there, including many of their direct competitors in the “church donations” market.

I’m excited about what ContinueToGive has to offer to churches. Like Soren, they are a young and growing company, but they offer an impressive product, a particularly keen understanding of how churches operate, and all for a great bargain. If you are struggling with an online giving platform or haven’t yet implemented one but are considering it, I strongly encourage you to check them out.