IntaSend payments provide the best way that NGOs and religious bodies can receive monetary donations through online donation platforms in Africa. Running a non-governmental organization or a religious body is no easy task to do. Sure, there is no profit target, but a lot of objectives still need to be met. Lives are being transformed by the work you do and many lives hang on the decisions you make. To reach more lives and touch more people, you need a lot of funding. You also need an appropriate channel to receive and disburse funds.
A payment processing tool or payment gateway is pertinent to receiving church and mosque donations and NGO donations through mobile and online donation platforms. The payment gateway works on the backend to accept money from donors and deposit the money into your bank account. It makes it easy for people to donate or contribute money via their computer, smartphone, or tablet. They do not need to send a cheque or go to the bank to make a transfer or deposit to the organization’s account. This saves a lot of time for both the donors and the charity body.
Options for receiving NGO funds
The payment gateway will provide you with various means of embedding the payment options on your NGO’s website. It could be a plugin for your website that will be connected to your API key at the backend. It could also be a simple link that you can send to donors.
Every payment option will be linked to a simple payment button on your website. Once the payment button is clicked on, donors will see the various options by which they can make payments to your organization or church.
Features to look out for in an online donation platform
Here are the top features that an NGO payment processing platform should have.
PCI-DSS Compliance
A good NGO should be PCI-DSS compliant to ensure that it meets industry card payments standards. This means all card payments that come through online donation platforms meet all the necessary security and compliance standards.
Payment description
Your NGO or religious payment platform should allow you to have a field for payment descriptions. This way, donors can explain what donations are made for and it makes it easy for your organization to keep records. It also helps religious organizations like churches to separate between offering, tithes, donations for a building project, and other forms of church donation. This option is important for tracking important details.
Donor information
Donor name, phone number, email address, and any other essential details can be collected as needed. This helps with record keeping.
Periodic reports
Reports are important for any NGO and religious organization. Reports show how the organization is being run and how money donated is being spent. It helps to create trust between nonprofit causes and their donors.
Your payment processing company can help you with the information you need to create the financial aspect of your report. A good online donation platform should provide you with periodic reports of your financials. The reports should contain details of all inflow and outflow. Reports should contain sample information like gross volume received, number of donors, disbursement volume, disbursement state, etc. This will help you create detailed reports for donors and other stakeholders. Some platforms even provide impressive analytics tools for intelligent decision-making.
The reports also help with tracking funding goals and campaigns. You can easily see how much has been donated and what remains for funding goals to be met. This will help you meet your objectives faster. The reports can also help with accounting tasks. They will save the organizational staff a lot of time.
Data security
A good payment processor ensures the security of your data and that of your donors and other stakeholders. So, whether they choose cryptocurrency or other forms of donation, a good online donation platform will ensure maximum data security. Security features like encryption, tokenization will be used to ensure safety throughout the whole payment process. Two-factor authentication will also be used to ensure that unwanted persons can’t log in or make changes to your account.
A one-fit-all solution
A one-fit-all solution is needed to handle all kinds of NGO payments be it donations, annual membership fees, payment for merchandise, event ticket sales, and event registration fees.
Minimal fees and expenses
A good NGO payment gateway ensures minimal transaction fees, subscription fees, add-on fees, and more. Avoid rip-offs and scams in a bid to get a good payment processor. They should charge a little percentage per transaction. Ensure that there are no hidden charges. Expenses like cancellation fees, withdrawal fees, cancellation fees, statement fees, refund fees, and accounts setup fees should be known.
Multiple payment options
NGO bodies that can receive money through various payment options are more likely to receive more donations than others. You should be able to receive funds through cryptocurrency, M-Pesa, Visa, and Mastercard. So, you need a competent payment processing company that can help you with that.
Accept currency in foreign currency
If you are running your NGO or charity donations, your default donation schemes may only allow you to donate in your local currency. If you want to get more monetary donations, you need an online donation platform that can allow you to receive money in foreign currencies. This is where a payment gateway comes in. Now you can accept money and church donations from anyone both home and abroad, no matter where they are. The exchange rates should also be reasonable and updated promptly.
Fraud detection
Fraud detection is an important feature for any online donation platform used by NGOs and religious organizations. These organizations are often targeted by scammers and other nefarious people. A payment platform with fraud detection will save you and your organization a lot of hassles. They can confirm that credit cards used for donations are not fraudulent. They ensure that all credit card details entered are correct. They can also confirm that the person making the donation is a real human and not a robot.
Capability to handle heavy traffic
A good payment processing platform should be able to handle donations perfectly without any downtime, hiccup, or glitch no matter how many people are making donations at the same time. For example, church donation platforms often report a lot of traffic during offering times with some lags experienced. This causes delays in processing payments. NGOs also experience delays during or after major fundraisers. If people get frustrated during the donation process, they may abandon everything, and make the NGO lose money. Avoid this by using a capable and competent payment processor.
The more reliable and trustworthy your online donation platform is, the more likely donors will give again in the future.
Payment notifications
Payment notifications are important for NGOs. They help the organizations to send thank you emails and notes to donors ASAP. Payment notifications also help organizations process donor packages, tickets, and other things faster. The faster you respond to donors, the more willing donors will be to donate even more later. It will endear your NGO to donors.
Custom donation form
A proper online donation platform allows you to customize the fields to be filled when donating for a more personal touch. So, your donors no longer have to fill out boring, generic donation forms. You can tweak your donation forms with meaningful fields and information requests.
Prompt, brilliant customer support
A good payment gateway should have prompt customer support that is available to attend to your inquiries and usage issues 24/7. The customer care could be reachable by email or by phone. Apart from being reachable and prompt, they must be smart enough to identify problems you have and provide solutions to them. The better the customer support, the faster you can resolve issues and receive more funds from donors.
Easy setup
A good online processing platform should be easy to set up to accept all forms of donation. You will be provided with a simple API that you can integrate into your website easily. You might also be provided with payment links that you can send to donors.
Smooth and stress-free user experience
Donors need to have a smooth experience when making their donations. There shouldn’t be any clutter with the user interface. The prompts and instructions should be very clear and easily interpretable. It should be easy to make donations, as poor user experience can turn off potential donors.
Unlike PayPal donate, where your donors have to log in to make a payment, a good online donation platform won’t require contributors to create an account. The shorter the donation process, the more donors will be willing to contribute to your cause.
The smoother the donation process, the more you retain donors. A lot of NGOs struggle with donor retention rates. The best way to increase your donor retention rate is to choose an online donation platform with the best user experience.
Disburse donations and funds easily
Funds should be easily disbursed as required. It should also be possible to disburse funds to multiple vendors and contractors at once if required. Some online donation platforms allow users to upload excel sheets containing recipient details for fast disbursement of funds.
Fast withdrawal of funds
You don’t have to wait for several days to make a withdrawal. The withdrawal process should be fast and seamless. You should be able to use funds for the fast implementation of projects as they come in. Funds could be withdrawn to your bank, M-Pesa, and other withdrawal options. Some payment processors also allow for automated scheduled payouts.
Local compliance and acceptance
Some NGOs and religious bodies use PayPal donate to receive funds. The major problems associated with PayPal donate are poor acceptance in Africa, haphazard account holds, and accounts limitations. To avoid these, you need an online donation platform domiciled and accepted in Africa.
Bonus features
Ask your potential online donation platform for the bonus features they have and compare them to others. For example, some payment processors might offer you referral bonuses for referring other NGOs, churches, and business organizations to use them. So, you might get a bonus for every transaction processed for organizations that you refer. This is a great way to earn money for your NGO.
Intasend
There are various platforms to receive NGO donations, church donations, and websites where members with PayPal donate to NGO organizations. But there is one platform that stands tall among the rest. And that is IntaSend. The next heading will explain how to undergo the IntaSend KYC process to start using the platform to receive NGO funds and donations.
Intasend KYC Process for NGOs and other organizations
Before you can receive funds on Intasend, you need to complete a KYC (Know Your Customer) and compliance process. You will be required to upload copies of certain documents to confirm your status as a registered NGO or religious body. The documents will include a stamped copy of your board of directors’ resolution, a cheque that has been canceled, a KRA Tax certificate, and a business registration certificate.
You will select your business type as NGO/non-profit, enter your address, and select the required files for upload. You will also need to enter the name of two directors along with available phone numbers. Once the documents are uploaded, Intasend will review the documents and approve them if they meet all requirements. The documents should be reviewed within one to three days.
Once your documents have been approved, you can go ahead to set up your account and begin receiving payments through Intasend. The KYC process confirms that your organization has been registered by the government and it is duly legal to accept and receive payments using Intasend.
Test NGO or religious body Payment through IntaSend
An impressive feature of Intasend is that you can test the platform through a demo feature before you start using it for church donation, Paypal donate and online donation platforms. So, you can create a demo account to test the features before approving them for public use for your donors. You can test all its features thoroughly and confirm that it meets your needs and requirements.
