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Ethics

ePhilanthropy Foundation is an American initiative to promote trust in and use of online giving. You may wish to look at their draft code of practice - we have reproduced it for ease of access, along with other 'donor rights' info as we find them.

Options

There are a number of ways of getting money processed as a result of someone making a decision to 'buy' from your website (or via seeing a charity ad elsewhere):

• At time of writing (June 2000), it is common for all types and sizes of organisations to require a form to be printed off and posted, or a phone call, with cheque or credit card payment being processed in 'standard' ways.
• Use a Payment Service Provider (PSP) facility, where your website connects through when someone wants to make a payment. The money goes to their account, and you get paid typically 45 days later. (Information should be collected on your site so you respond before then!). Operate on a set-up fee (sometimes free) plus a percentage per transaction which can be double the offline charge.
• A 'secure server' within your web set-up which allows taking credit/debit card details online, and you then feed in manually to your normal card processing arrangements.
• Real online card processing, through a facility like ePDQ (see Barclays), with a live or batch connection to the card issuers/clearers. Usually a monthly fee, lower transaction charge than PSP - try to negotiate same as your offline arrangement.
• Your own online processing facility, connecting through to the banks system in a similar way to BACS. Only for the largest, and even then probably not yet.

Online Donations

There is now a range of facilities for collecting donations online. These are generally variations on the Payment Service Provider model. You may want to investigate how these facilities manage or link in to Gift Aid processing.

• bmycharity Various online fundraising/donation services. They have been recommended for speed of response and thoroughness.

• CAF can collect donations over the internet in a couple of ways. NB their efundraising site has been integrated into CAFOnline.

• Charity Choice, an online directory, is working with Cooperative Bank to provide a free online donation facility for registered charities.

• Charity Technology Trust offers various card processing technology, on and offline.

• Committed Giving from Phrasis is "an easy to use, secure Intranet system" to take and verify Direct Debit donations.

• Direct Debits Online Flexible online fundraising system from Baigent which enables online credit card, debit card and direct debit donations. Phone 01494 770 120, email: enquiries@baigent.net

• WorkWithUs, connected with Scottish support body SCVO, has online facilities Fundraising Plus. Can be used by any UK charity and integrates with Campaign Helper service. (Note: minimum donation amount accepted is £5, at Jun 04.)

• JustGiving powers "online giving, plus paper-free Gift Aid reclaims, either through their site or as 'white label' technology within charities' own web page".

• MakeaDonation.com is another US-based online donation service which operates internationally.

• Poptech, now Fused Technology, has developed a number of facilities such as Digital Direct Debit.

• Rapidata Services has some online fundraising services as well as direct debit facilities.

• Securegiving.co.uk Designed specifically for UK charities, provides secure online donations via the charity's own web site through a simple 'click here to donate' link. No set-up or monthly fees, but transaction charge ranges from 6% to 8% depending on volume.

• Smartchange Main focus is web portal where they can present details of their cause to company employees, but also provides fundraising pages for inidivudal sponsorship.

An open source add-on to the CiviCRM platform, CiviContribute, is being developed, at spring 2006. While coming from an American base, they are trying hard to internationalise it.

General Payment Services

• Barclaycard Business Services A helpful web site. ePDQ is their online payment facility for approved merchants. They have also created Enable, which is more of a PSP where you can get an online payments facility set up very quickly, but the money takes some time to arrive.
  
  
• Datacash Has a useful round-up of e-commerce/online shop software and services.
  
  
• NetBanx.
  
  
• PayPal is a little different to the others. Accept credit card payments very quickly, but there are some restrictions on what you can then do with the money. Don't forget to select the right country.
  
  
• Planet Payment Phone 0800 027 3636.
  
  
• SECPay
  
  
• SecureTrading provides 'real time' processing of payments by credit and debit card. UK based. Rates for charities (Autumn 04): 1% of each transaction plus £150 per year.
  
  
• WorldPay is quite widely used by UK charities (which get 1% on credit cards, no annual fee). Doesn't meet full accessibility requirements, according to reports. Now part of Royal Bank of Scotland Group.