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  • 1.  Venmo

    Posted 10-03-2023 04:55 PM

    We would like to offer Venmo as a payment option but our online platform (Givesmart) does not accept Venmo payments however, Blackbaud does except Venmo.  Has anyone else run into this situation?  If so, how did you handle it?   

    If you are accepting Venmo, does it provide the donor name and address information or just the handle name? Any advise on accepting Venmo payments would be greatly appreciated.

    Thank you,  



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    Melissa Workman
    California Baptist University
    mworkman@calbaptist.edu
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  • 2.  RE: Venmo

    Posted 10-04-2023 01:41 PM

    Hi Melissa,

    My office gets this request all the time from various places. Platforms including GiveCampus, Blackbaud, and iModules include Venmo as a payment option, meaning that a donor first fills out the donation form providing you with all the information you usually request, and then on the billing step they are directed to Venmo for checkout. This way you do receive all the required donor info in order to issue a receipt.

    Also, last fall Venmo concluded a beta test for non-profit accounts and opened that functionality up to the public. My school has not signed up for a charity profile because our CFO is extremely conservative about linking our bank account to additional platforms, but here is the link if you want to be able to accept donations directly via Venmo:

    https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/6678084998291-Charity-Profile-FAQ

    I hope this helps.



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    Erin DesMarais
    New England College
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  • 3.  RE: Venmo

    Posted 10-05-2023 06:07 AM
    Hi,

    Givecampus accepts Venmo, but this is because with GiveCampus you have a "managed Paypal account" through them... you are not using your own PayPal and you do not have access to the Paypal/Venmo transactions on the PayPal site (you see them in your GiveCampus site). The benefit to this is all the credit card fees are billed monthly by Givecampus and you get daily gross deposits which any business office/Finance department probably loves.. 

    With GiveCampus, you do have the initial fill out the donation form page with limited info (we're a school, so it's easier to find out who the donor is so we don't need to ask for address contact info). Then the Venmo option does show up on mobile devices as the process payment button which connects to your Venmo account and completes the transaction.

    The nice thing about this process is you do get all the donor information from your GiveCampus form for all the gifts so any gift restrictions, tribute requests etc can show up.

    We also set up a true non-profit Venmo account for folks who search for us on Venmo and donate, but with that process you get limited information (plus being an official non-profit, there is a 1.4% fee withdrawal).

    I cannot speak for other vendors that use Venmo on donation forms.

    Good luck,

    Tara Zoltek
    Director of Advancement Services
    Cell 484-609-6466
    Direct 484-417-2728
    The Haverford School
    450 Lancaster Avenue
    Haverford, PA 19041






  • 4.  RE: Venmo

    Posted 10-05-2023 07:20 AM

    A couple things that are important to remember when discussing Venmo with non-administrative/technical colleagues:

     

    1. Often this discussion starts because of they've experienced Venmo in other settings (i.e. cost sharing with friends, sending funds to family, etc...) and were impressed by the ease of the transaction. In these situations they often either are not thinking about all the additional information that is needed to properly handle a gift transaction or they are just think you have other ways of getting the info. It's important for them to be made aware of this distinction before investing time in it because, if you implement it with a giving platform that accepts it, they will eventually realize that what they are getting is not that much different than what they had in the past with other methods.
    2. Even, given point 1, there is obviously a benefit to accepting the most popular method's of payment and Venmo definitely is one of those. There is also the benefit of paying via an app that can authenticate using facial recognition because it speeds up the process and the more quickly you can move someone through the process of making a gift, the less likely you are to lose them. The way I look at is that your most motivated givers will take the steps necessary regardless of options. Making the process easier with more options will help with your more medium or less motivated givers. You obviously want all of the above if possible.
    3. Venmo's new charity profile option holds some promise in my opinion. My understanding is you only get name, email, and comment but, from a gift processing standpoint, that is a workable. Many will already be in your database and searchable via email and you can set up some type of e-communication to use with the rest, asking them for the additional info needed to fully set up their account – or figure out which account they belong to.

     

    Thanks. This topic gets brought up periodically but the landscape is changing so it's worth re-discussing periodically. It would be great to hear if anyone has tried integrating the new charity profile integration directly with Venmo into their operations.

     

    Best,

    John Smilde

    Director of Gifts and Records Administration

    Advancement and Alumni Relations

    George Mason University

    4400 University Drive, MSN 1A3

    Fairfax, VA 22030

    703.993.8680

    jsmilde@gmu.edu

     

    This electronic message contains confidential information which is, in whole or in part,

    subject to exclusion from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act pursuant to

    §2.2-3705.4.7. of the Code of Virginia.

     

     

     

     






  • 5.  RE: Venmo

    Posted 10-23-2023 01:55 PM

    Hi Melissa,

    We utilize Slate for our database of record, and also serves as our payment processor (they utilize Stripe). We are able to take; credit card, ACH, Google Pay, Apple Pay, venmo and paypal through our giving form and when they use this form, the system will automatically reciept the donor and populates the gift in our system automatically. When they make the gift through Venmo, it records in our system with their legal naming information, and we actually dont see any of their venmo account information. The data lives specifically in the payment widget on our form.

    We had seen an increase as soon as we turned on capabilities to support google pay, apple pay, venmo, and paypal last year (around 20% increase in number of gifts and 11% in total dollars of gifts). We have been able to increase giving at events by offering QR codes on the tables and they could pay through any of those channels, and that has been a big hit.



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    Quinn Phillips
    Albion College
    qphillips@albion.edu
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  • 6.  RE: Venmo

    Posted 10-23-2023 02:48 PM
    Hi Quinn,
    Did you have to set up a separate account with PayPal/Venmo that you link through your giving form?  Or was that somehow included as a payment option with your Slate contract?
    Gwen




    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Venmo

    Posted 10-23-2023 03:11 PM

    Hi Gwen,

    We have a non-profit Paypal/ Venmo account and Slate has the intigration that we can plug into, so once connected I was all set. I can add or remove it from any of our payment/ registration forms. We have the non-profit account which is much cheaper than having a standard business account, and thats the only fee thats associated with paypal/ venmo.

    Our Slate contract is specific to our license, and with that we have access to all product releases. Last year they implemented the ability to accept those payment methods, and we were able to make the decision if we wanted to turn them on or not. Pretty cool - we are not charged for any new product releases in our contract so as new things become a trend - chat GPT for example, we are able to take advantage of them within one platform saving us a ton of money in technology costs.



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    Quinn Phillips
    Albion College
    qphillips@albion.edu
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    Original Message


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