Why Switching From Interac eTransfer to Donation Forms Makes Sense

Are you a Canadian charity accepting donations through Interac eTransfer? Perhaps this ‘free’ payment processing model seems like a solid option for your thrifty or resource-strapped charity. If you answered YES , you’re in the right place.

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In This Blog

In this blog, you will learn how to upgrade your non-profit organization from accepting money over eTransfer to fundraising via a slick and trusted charitable donation form. Read on, and learn how to create a seamless and elevated donation checkout flow, for free, directly within your website using a CanadaHelps’ Custom Donation Form. 

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Research in CanadaHelps’ 2024 Giving Report shows that the donors of today expect seamless digital payment flows. Donors compare their giving experiences on charity websites against the checkout processes of companies like Netflix and Amazon. Offering a seamless experience for online giving is the most effective way to ensure the long-term financial viability of your charity.

The assumption that digitizing your online giving process is costly and labour-intensive is often what prevents charities from taking action in this regard. But it does not have to be this way! In fact, sun-setting your use of Interac e-Transfer and elevating your online giving flow with a CanadaHelps linked or embedded Donation Form can be non-technical, inexpensive and painless. Keep reading, let’s explore some of the benefits of moving from Interac eTransfer to an electronic Donation Form together.

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Donating over Interac eTransfer introduces many points of friction for the donor. Consider this: donors need to open a new browser window or app, sign into their online banking account, add your organization as a contact, set up the money transfer, and potentially create a unique security question if they haven’t set up auto-deposit!

That is 5+ path divergences donors needs to take to make a simple donation. It's 5 points where donors can give up on the donation process, or get distracted. By comparison, a CanadaHelps Donation Form is a same-page giving experience. Donors don’t need to open a new window, login to online banking, make multiple decisions or create a security key.

When charities use Interac eTransfer, you create barriers to giving for donors. By not offering donors a seamless “checkout” flow, your may be missing out on funds in situations where donors are “abandoning their carts” and giving up.

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Navigating the process of issuing CRA-compliant tax receipts for each and every donation you receive over Interac e-Transfer is laborious. It's a manual process that takes significant time and effort.

You must copy the details from each individual donation into a spreadsheet, create the donation receipts yourself and then email them back to the donor. Let’s be real: this process is inefficient and is not scalable as your charitiable organization grows. The process leaves room for human error and typos, and presents the additional issue of how to store and retrieve the data when donors lose their receipts or request additional copies.

By switching to a CanadaHelps Customizable Donation Form, you remove the administrative burden of manually issuing tax receipts for donors. Tax receipts are automatically issued and emailed to your donors following a donation, and again preceding the April tax season. As an additional perk, tax receipts are accessible to donors at any time through their CanadaHelps account. You can trust that CanadaHelps is optimized for Canadian charities and one of the few CRA-certified donation processing providers.

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The fundraising agency, McConkey Johnston International found that first-time donors who receive a personalized thank you within 48 hours of making a charitable donation were four times more likely to give again. 

Donations come in over the holidays, on weekends and at all times of the day and night. With Interac e-Transfer, there is no systematic or automatic way to deploy donor thank-you emails after gifts come in. Issuing donor thank you messages is a manual process. And a costly one, when you factor in labour. 

CanadaHelps’ Customizable Donation Forms automate your donor acknowledgement process. Charities can customize their automated thank you emails with a selection of branding, messaging and colourways. 

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Here is how you set up automated donor thank-you emails and tax receipts:

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Say goodbye to clunky, inefficient spreadsheets and instead store all your donor data in one central place. Save time and money on administrative tasks and streamline data management processes with CanadaHelps’ Customizable Donation Forms. Our platform safely stores the critical donor data charities need, and allows you to export the data, build historical records and create custom data reports.

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When charitable donations flow in over Interac eTransfer, details such as the date of donation, amount, donor’s name and email must be manually transferred into a spreadsheet. 

Interac eTransfer is a platform designed for use between individuals, who – often times – are already acquainted with each other. This means Interac collects minimal data about its users. Valuable data that charities need, like donor addresses and phone numbers, are not made available. 

Additionally, storing sensitive donation data over email accounts increases your charity's security risk. Get all the donor data you need, and streamline the management of your digital recordkeeping by processing your donations with CanadaHelps. 

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There are no monthly, annual or user fees for linking or embedding a CanadaHelps Donation Form on your website. Even if you have the Donation Form on your website for six-months and no donations come through, you won’t be charged a thing!

CanadaHelps charges a processing fee of 3.75% from donations that come in through our Customizable Donation Forms. At the time of donation, the donor has the option to self-select covering this fee themselves. And if you link or embed a form on your site, there's another 0.25% discount on transaction fees per donation.

By comparison, Interac e-Transfer charges the donor a transaction fee of $1-$1.50 at the majority of banks and credit unions in Canada. The fee does not vary based on donation amount, and and no flexibility is given in terms of which party covers it, or for monthly reocurring donations.

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Credit cards reign supreme as donors' number one preferred method for charitable giving. Offering payment by credit card is therefore crucial to meet donor’s expectations. 

When converting supporters into donors, our Custom Donation Form offers donors multiple payment options. Donors can choose from Google Pay, Apple Pay, credit card, PayPal, CanadaHelps gift cards and the express checkout option. 

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Monthly gifts are the optimal type of donation for charities, especially smaller charities. This is because reliable funding makes it easier for charities to plan their finances, and therefore plan for long-term impact.

Donation revenue fluctuates dramatically from month to month, or from year to year. Monthly giving offers a more secure source of funding for charities. Additionally, monthly donors are typically the most engaged group of donors. In CanadaHelps’ Custom Donation Form, donors can self-administer monthly giving through a seamless electronic checkout process.

Interac e-transfer doesn't offer features to support or encourage monthly, only one-time donations. Furthermore, it's difficult to imagine donors consistently logging back into their bank to account to make the same donation manually each month.

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Instead of asking donors to send gifts to email addresses, simply embed or link your CanadaHelps Custom Donation Form onto your website’s “donate” landing page. As fundraising continues to get harder and more competitive, the most effective way charities can adapt to the current marketplace is by offering donors a seamless donation processing experience. 

In our current era, having to open new browser windows, sign into multiple accounts and transfer money to an unknown email account creates unnecessary blockers to receiving the generosity of donors. For nearly 25 years, CanadaHelps has maintained a flawless record of secure financial processing. Donors trust the safety of their financial records.

Ready to make the official switch from Interac eTransfer to a CanadaHelps Customizable Donation Form? Book a demo with one of our fundraising experts today, and learn how we can meet your unique needs.