It's simple: donating by ACH/bank account is by far the least expensive payment method. This means that your nonprofit gets more from your donation, putting more of your contribution to work to fulfill its mission.‍

Stripe, our payment processor, takes 0.8% of each ACH/bank transaction, capped at $5 no matter how large the donation. This contrasts with credit cards, which trigger fees between 2.2% and 3.5% of the total transaction and are never capped.

What's an example?

If you donate $1,000 via ACH/bank, the nonprofit will receive $995.

If you make the same donation via credit card, the nonprofit will receive between $965 and $977 of your payment, depending on the type of credit card. That means that $22 to $35 of your donation will be redirected to Stripe and not the nonprofit.

Why do we suggest it?

We believe that a nonprofit shouldn't have to sacrifice its means to satisfy its mission. That's why we've placed "Bank Account" as the primary suggested payment method on this form.

How does it work?

We've made paying via ACH/bank very easy, by partnering with secure third-party bank authorization platform Plaid.

Using Plaid means you don't need to remember your account and routing number, and you don't have to wait several days for verifying micro-deposits to hit your account. Plaid partners with thousands of US-based banks and uses your online banking credentials to instantly access your account to make donations. Plaid partners with Stripe as a bank authorization provider. Both are PCI Level 1 Compliant.

‍What do you mean by "Bank Accounts"?‍

"Bank Accounts" means checking, savings and money market accounts.

Other donation methods

In addition to receiving payments via ACH/bank, nonprofits have the option of offering other payment methods (what you see on the fundraising page is what the nonprofit has opted for):

• all major credit cards or debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club and JCB)
• digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay
• PayPal