How to take donations online

A donation payment group is how tithes, offerings and gifts arrive through your website and app: one-off or regular, with Gift Aid declarations built in. Many churches make this their first payment group, and it’s a good place to start.

Setting up giving

1. Set up the payment group with its type set to donation. The language changes to match (people who give are donors), and tabs that make no sense for giving, like tickets and discounts, are tidied away. The rest of the setup follows how to set up a payment group.
2. Allow repeat registrations, so people can give again and again without the system objecting, and decide whether giving is open to anyone or just logged-in members.
3. Set the donation amounts as variable on the choices, so each person decides what to give.
4. Offer one-off, monthly and annual giving through your payment plans: an upfront plan for one-off gifts, and recurring plans for regular giving.
5. Turn on the Gift Aid options in the plan so donors see the declaration as they give. For UK churches, the HMRC integration then lets you claim the Gift Aid back through Hubb as often as you like, which does lovely things for cash flow.
6. Once regular giving is flowing, set up the failed-payment notification straight away; keeping on top of recurring payments explains why it matters.

---

Good to know

• Giving is quickest for logged-in members: details pre-filled, card saved, done in seconds, and it works beautifully in the church app. Donors can also pay with Google Pay and Apple Pay; there’s more in our blog post announcing them.
• The donation page can sit in your website menu like any other page, or be embedded in an existing giving page with the payment group module.
• Whether gifts qualify for Gift Aid depends on the donor and the gift, and claiming correctly is your church’s responsibility; how to make a Gift Aid claim walks the full process, from linking your HMRC account to submitting and fixing donations with missing details.