This page demonstrates a one-time credit-card donation using the GivePlus app. All screenshots have been taken from the Android app, but the iOS app should appear similar.
To start, click on Give Now on the sign in screen.
On the “Give Now” screen, click on the orange “+” to enter a donation. (This step is needed because one could donate to multiple funds in a single donation.)
The next step varies slightly depending on whether the church is currently accepting donations for multiple funds. If we’re accepting donations for multiple funds, the next screen will be “Funds”, which allows you to choose where to direct your donation.
For this example, we will give to the General Fund. Click on it to select it.
The “Fund Detail” screen shows the selected fund and the frequency. (Frequencies other than “one-time” are only used when signed in.) Choose a preset amount or enter the desired amount of your donation. (The preset amounts are determined by First Parish. We’re using defaults now, but we may change the presets in the future.)
In this example, I chose to donate $30. When you click on the “Other Amount” field, a virtual numeric keypad opens to allow you to type the amount. At this time, only whole-dollar amounts are allowed.
Enter the amount, and then click “Add”.
This brings you back to the Give Now screen, but now with a donation listed. Click on the right-arrow in the upper right to proceed.
You will now be asked to choose whether to pay with a credit/debit card or a bank account. The default will be “Credit or Debit Card”. Choose “Next” to proceed.
Your phone’s camera will now come on so you can take a picture of your credit card, to allow the app to pick up the information from it. My experience is that this process is quite fussy and only works some of the time. If it doesn’t work, click on “Keyboard” to move to the next screen.
There’s no screenshot of this, because screenshots are disabled for this operation for security reasons.
On the “Payment Information” screen, enter whatever information wasn’t captured by the camera, including the CVV code. Then enter the billing name and address. This is required by credit card companies, and is also provided to First Parish to correlate your donation with your pledge.
The credit card number used in this example is a dummy number provided for testing.
(Although it says your account details will be saved, this will not actually happen when doing a one-time donation.)
After entering the information, click on “Next” at the bottom of the screen. This brings you to the “Donation Summary” page.
At this point, you can choose to add 3% to cover the church’s costs of providing credit-card giving. These costs reflect the convenience of paying by credit or debit card. (The GivePlus service provider does not distinguish between credit and debit cards in the price of their service.)
If you choose to add the 3%, also called a “gross-up”, the amount will be reflected in the summary.
The entire amount (with the 3%) is deductible as a donation, but the church realizes approximately the base donation.
If all is well, click on “Complete Donation”. This initiates the transaction. You will get a “Donation Confirmation” screen.
Click on “Done” to complete a one-time donation. It’s quite a few steps, but several of these can be eliminated by creating a login.