Electronic payments to team?

FIRST General Forum
#1

What payment platforms do other teams use to accept dues and other payments?

In 2014/2015, when our team was first organized, Venmo offered a beta ‘nonprofit’ program that allowed nonprofits to collect donations and other funds. They shut the program down in 2017, but grandfathered in existing nonprofits, including our team. Unfortunately, they appear to have forgotten all about this and are trying to treat our team account as a personal account, which breaks because their ‘identity validation’ just doesn’t work.

#2

We use PayPal.

They sent us a free card reader. There is a fee for credit card purchases, but it is discounted for not for profits.

This has been working okay for us.

2 Likes
#3

501c3s using Paypal should enroll in the PayPal Giving Fund, it is a fantastic platform.

Examples:
Intentional Innovation Foundation
EWCP

3 Likes
#4

We’re pretty fortunate - the school set us up with an online donation form we could embed on our website, and they handle our student fees through a similar form as well. All our money goes through the school, so there’s no external account to worry about there.

#5

We use PayPal and having researched other payment platforms (for things not related to robotics) I can tell you it’s the best “off the shelf” platform. That said–always check with your school to make sure they don’t already have a platform they use that your team can just piggyback off of.

#6

Yeah, we’re a community-based team. No school, so no school funding. Venmo being fee-free was a big help.

#7

While we are a school based team, we also don’t have school funding so I feel you but as long as you are a registered non-profit, PayPal’s fees are pretty reasonable.

In the event you want to do something like sell tickets, Yapsody is great. They offer non-profit discounts that rival PayPal’s and you can do it all on their site.

#8

Also- a quick Google search turned up Classy and on first glance their fees seem identical to PayPal for credit card transactions but they also offer ACH and they say Venmo is coming soon. So that might be another option to consider?