Online Platform Helps Catholic Charities Simplify Online Donations
Catholic Charities of Central Colorado offers critical services to the poor and vulnerable in central Colorado. They offer programs that cover everything from adoption services to a soup kitchen to immigration aid, and they do it all from two offices that cover a 10-county area. Their array of programs and services are funded largely by individual donors. Janet Hutchinson, Chief Development Officer of the Central Colorado chapter of Catholic Charities, estimates that 35% of the organization’s funding comes from individuals. As online giving becomes increasingly popular among today’s donors, the chapter has teamed up with Qgiv, an online donation platform that builds branded donation forms for charitable organizations, to offer their burgeoning Internet donor base an easy, intuitive way to give online.
Catholic Charities of Central Colorado started offering online donation options ten years ago, when donors slowly started adopting online giving as their preferred donation method. The chapter originally accepted donations directly through their merchant processor, and they sometimes used a card reader to process in-person transactions. As they attracted new donors, it quickly became apparent that they needed to find another fundraising platform. “[The original platform] was very basic,” Hutchinson said. “I don’t think it was very user-friendly.” There were other, more critical concerns, too, and Hutchinson noted that their IT department brought up some concerns about the platform’s security.
“We changed because we were able to save some money. We also had the capability of allowing donors to schedule recurring gifts.”
Their new system, the chapter decided, would need to address the concerns that their merchant processor couldn’t solve, and it would need to be able to accommodate their growing online donor base. At their IT consultant’s recommendation, Catholic Charities of Central Colorado began using Qgiv. Qgiv maintains level-one PCI compliance, which handled the security issues, and switching platforms also came with a number of other perks. “We changed because we were able to save some money,” Hutchinson noted. “We also had the capability of allowing donors to schedule recurring gifts, and we had more flexibility being able to change our online form as needed.”
“The move to Qgiv’s platform has done more than just facilitate recurring donations; the platform has also helped the organization manage the growing number of individual donors who are moving online. The chapter has seen steady growth in their online giving since teaming up with Qgiv. In their first three years with Qgiv, they experienced a 170% increase in online giving.”
“I feel like I don’t have any stress about online donations!”
As Catholic Charities of Central Colorado plans for the future and anticipates increased online donations, Hutchinson notes that Qgiv is making the process as easy as possible. “I feel like I don’t have any stress about online donations,” she laughed. “And that’s good!” Whether the chapter is working on e-blasts to attract new recurring donors, maintaining their donor base online, or accommodating new supporters, Catholic Charities of Central Colorado knows that Qgiv will be there to help them grow.
Produced in cooperation with
Share the love!
