Welcome to Giving! Now that you've completed the Giving setup, this article will help get you prepared to receive donations and learn more about Giving.
Note
The first person who sets up a Giving account has Administrator permissions and can access all areas of Giving. See the Permissions article to find information about additional roles.
Check out this clip from Planning Center University.
For an introduction to the main concepts in Giving and what you can do as an Admin, see the Introduction for Administrators article.
Start by following these steps to prepare your account to receive donations:
Check out this clip from Planning Center University.
Here are some tips for choosing which package level is best for your church:
Typically, about 17% of churchgoers donate. So, to get your average number of monthly donations, multiply [your weekly attendance] x .17 x 4.3 (average weeks in a month). For example, a congregation of 1000 would receive approximately 731 donations a month (1000 x .17 x 4.3 = 731).
Any donation counts as one donation, no matter which payment source is used. For example, if you process 500 physical donations, it's the same price as processing 200 physical donations + 300 online donations.
Your account is now ready to go, and donors are ready to Give online.
You can find the link to your donation form on your Church Center page in Giving. If enabled, you'll find download links for the Church Center mobile app here as well.
You can share the link to your donation form (Church Center) from your church’s website, social media page, or even in an email newsletter.
If you don't have time to watch a video, you can learn about important features in Giving by referencing these articles:
Giving Overview: Get to know the purpose and key concepts of Giving.
Giving Online: Learn more about the online giving experience and find shareable videos.
Processing Donations with Stripe: Learn about how Stripe works with you and Giving to process donations.
Giving and Bookkeeping: Get some tips on how to use Giving alongside your general ledger/bookkeeping software.
Supported Payment Methods: Find out how Giving is designed to handle online donations, physical donations, and donations from other systems.
Our Support Team is always here to help! Use the ? at the top right of every page to find articles or open a ticket with Support.
When you click that, you'll see this helpful dialog box.
Suggested articles will give suggestions based on the page you're on when you click the question mark.
Click browse our documentation to be taken directly to our online manual. You'll be able to see all of our help articles and open them from there.
Type in what you're looking for. This will search our online manual and return articles on that topic.
Send an email to our Support Team. For the most efficient support, be sure to include specifics about what you're working with. When you submit your questions from here, we receive lots of information about your account, including the page you're viewing, which allows for fast and accurate support for your request.
We're dedicated to getting you an email response within an hour whenever we can. We look into the issue in detail, ask for help from other seasoned members of the team, or even consult a developer, if necessary. This type of direct assistance and shared knowledge isn't available when on the phone.
However, if you do need a phone call, you can schedule one when you open a ticket.
These requests to Support can only be made by Organization Administrators:
Data removal or corrections you can't make yourself (undo old CSV imports, iCal imports, etc)
Request promotional pricing (legacy plans, church plants, Giving contract promotion)
Gain access to anything that was created and managed by someone else in the account
Restore or fully delete a canceled account
Disconnect a Stripe account
Request access to Giving (if there are no current Giving Administrators in the account)