With other credit card processing systems, charities are charged a transaction fee
to cover the credit card company processing charges and bank costs. With GiveDirect, those costs
are underwritten by Local Independent Charities of America, which means no charges are deducted from your gifts. (Exception:
American Express. AX deducts their charge prior to transmitting the funds, and there is no way
to recover that amount.) Local Independent Charities of America is able to do this by combining (but not commingling) accounts with
one bank, which gives it enough "compensating balances" to offset much of these charges.
The Local Independent Charities of America online giving system, referred to as GiveDirect, allows a visitor to your web site
the opportunity to make an instant, online gift to your organization via a secure, encrypted web
server. Donors can give using their Visa, MasterCard, or American Express.
No merchant account is needed. Donations received via GiveDirect are processed by Local
Independent Charities of American. Your money is forwarded on to you once a month via EFT.
The gift is confirmed with the donor immediately via email.
You also receive an email with the donor's information for acknowledgement and receipt
immediately after the gift is made. Web based administration is available where you can review
donations any time, search for a group of donors, and download donation information into your
database or spreadsheet. Your deposit information is also located online, showing you the
amount of the deposit and the date the deposit was sent to you.
Standard Form - The standard donation form is set up free of
charge.
Custom Form - The donation form can be customized to maintain
the look of the rest of your web site. Your logo can be placed at the top of each page of the
form, and you can specify a custom background color or image, font style and size, and link
colors. The customized form also includes a field where a donor can specify to which program
area or membership level they want to direct their donation, and a Bonus Text area where you
can give special instructions to the donor. A ONE-TIME set up fee of $150.00 is assessed for a
custom form. There is never a charge to change the features on your custom form.
Setting up GiveDirect on your web site is simple. We will assign you an account on our secure
server using a unique code. You will then be given the HTML link information using your code
for linking to the server. You will also be sent a web site address from where you can download
the GiveDirect graphic.
The donation form on this web site is the GiveDirect form. Click the
Give Online link to view the form.
If you are not already using GiveDirect on your web site, and you would like to, please
email our GiveDirect administrator Janet Bargewell at info@givedirect.org, or call her at 866.459.6420.
If you are using a commercial online giving service, which is charging you processing fees,
you may want to consider switching to the Local Independent Charities of America system. Change over is quick and easy.
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