Option for Donor-Covered Credit Card Processing Fees?

[Project Kesher]

I'm curious if Click&Pledge has an option for donors to choose to cover the processing fee for credit cards at checkout? I've noticed a couple fundraising sites (like Razoo and Frontstream) do that.

[CnP.Support]

Good day!

In general the feature you are asking for is not "legal" within the rules & regulations of the credit card issuers. I know that other companies allow for this but they are simply allowing their clients to break the regulations stating that nobody will enforce it.

see: http://www.consumer-action.org/downl...ckout_fees.pdf

Based on our understanding and discussion with Visa only the rental companies may charge the fee and this is also subject to change. The concept of "convenience fee" has also been discussed alongside this feature but the convenience fee cannot be a percentage since someone paying $2000 is not more convenience'd than someone paying $5 so if a convenience fee is to be charged it has to be the same across the board for everyone regardless of the amount paid.

So here is the question that we always wonder about!

If a donor agrees to donate $100 will he/she be discouraged thinking that a percentage is going towards credit card payment? Will they stop making the payment and think that they will mail the check and postpone the payment?

Another question: Is the credit card fee simply the cost of doing business? What about electricity? office rental? printer toner?

Should the donor be asked to pay for the toner used to print the thank you letter? I am not trying to argue against your idea.. I am just stating are these valid questions and where should one stop?

Donation, in general, is impulsive and one should not discourage it by adding more steps requiring conscience decision making. It is like asking people in-line to buy ice cream to fill out a questionnaire about sugar and calories in the ice cream & if they are willing to run a mile before having the ice cream.

We have given this a lot of thought and we may add this as an option to be added to a form but by agreeing to certain disclaimers addressing the governing rules.

Hope I have answered your question.

[[email protected]]

This was from 2015. It seems like everyone today is including an option for the donor to pay extra to cover the credit card fees. Has Click & Pledge made this available yet?

[CnP.Support.AM]

You may accomplish the above using Additional Fee. The 'Additional Fee' feature that is included in our products is only a feature you can use to present an additional fee to your Patrons. How you describe the purpose of that fee is up to you.

[[email protected]]

Thank you, and can you let me know how this additional fee comes over in the Opportunity? Does it create a second Opportunity? Or does it just add this amount the amount of the donation?

[CnP.Support.AM]

Except for the Connect and WooCommerce forms, for all of our products, it just adds that amount to the amount of the donation and creates only one opportunity. In the case of Connect and Woocommerce forms, we are considering it as line item hence it creates two opportunities in Salesforce.

[[email protected]]

So if I am using the Click and Pledge Connect forms, what will it do?

[CnP.Support.AM]

It will create two opportunities in Salesforce.