Looking for a way for your church members and friends to offer their financial support to your congregation during the current health crisis?
The Iowa Annual Conference has set up a way to make an online donation. A link can be created on the Conference website. Your church name would be included in a a drop-down list. The donor could leave a comment for you if they have specific instructions to the church.
Each time a gift is received for your church, you will receive an automatic email with all the information. Total gifts will be direct deposited to your bank account on a scheduled twice-a-month basis.
What would be required from you in order to set up online giving to your congregation?
- Your preferred email address to which an auto response will be sent when an online donation is made
- Your bank routing number and account number to set up the direct deposit to your account.
If your church is interested, please contact Maggie Biggs, Conference Treasurer at
[email protected].
Below are some answers to questions we have received regarding the local church online giving option:
1. What are the basics of how this works? The Conference has an online service currently used to receive gifts for some of our Conference-wide ministries. The online service deposits the monies into the Conference checking account on a regular basis. The Conference will then initiate an ACH (direct deposit) into the church bank account on a specific date (see below).
2. Will it cost the church anything for this service? The Conference is prepared to allow churches to use the online giving
for three months without any fees being deducted from the local church gift total. The Treasurer’s Office/Administrative Services will pick up those costs. After August 31st, the fees are .30 per transaction plus approximately 2.9% which is the amount charged to the Conference for the service.
3. How will we know when a gift is made? Our system, in which the gifts come in, will automatically send an email to the church each time a gift is received for your church. The donor may use an online comment section to designate their gift. Any comments made will be included in the email.
4. How do we make this happen? You will need to fill out the
attached form which is required by our bank anytime there is a direct deposit setup in or out of someone’s bank account.
5. How will we receive our money? At this time, we will be making a monthly deposit to your church account on the 15
th. Our information mentioned semi-monthly but we would like to start monthly. The Conference currently initiates an ACH file on the 15
th already and if we use this date, then there will be very minimal cost for the Conference. If you find that monthly causes a hardship, please let us know.
6. How will I reconcile the deposit total on the 15th with the gifts received? At this point, we would ask that you save each email you receive during the month and then reconcile with the direct deposit total. If you have questions or are uncertain what makes up a deposit, we ask that you call or email Nancy Agan at 515-974-8922 or
[email protected].
7. How will potential donors see where to give? There will be a Give Now or similar button that can be placed on your church website or if you wanted to email out the information, there would be a link that would take them to the online service.
8. Is this a secure site to donate through? The Iowa Conference page is handled through Braintree (a Pay Pal company) which is a secure encrypted site. At no time does any credit card information stay within the Iowa Conference system. The banking information that your church would submit to our office would be entered into the bank ACH portal and then securely stored. We are required to keep these authorizations on file per bank regulations.
