“We lost donations because no one had cash.”
“Our card reader stopped working at the worst time.”
“We didn’t want to buy more hardware just to collect $50.”
“It took a week to get all the checks deposited.”
Sound familiar? If you’ve ever run a fundraising event, you’ve likely faced the same headaches. People want to give. You want to collect. But actually getting those funds from one account to the other can feel unnecessarily expensive and complicated.
And when you're part of a small nonprofit, every missed donation counts.
Why Accepting In-Person Donations Is Still So Hard
Imagine this. You’ve thrown the perfect event. Your attendees are so moved that they’re lining up to fund your small nonprofit.
Great, the worst is over! Or it would be, if accepting in-person donations wasn’t such a pain.
It’s not you. All of the tried and true methods of accepting in-person donations have their limitations.
Cash, check, or card? Pick your poison.
- Cash. No one carries enough cash to put a dent in your budget. It’s hard to track and easy to lose. Risky.
- Checks. Vanishingly rare. If someone actually knows where their checkbook is, theoretically you have the money. But you have to keep your own records and then drive to the bank to use those funds.
- Card. Card readers are built for retail stores, not small nonprofits. Systems like Square and Stripe promise to solve the problem of cash or check giving… If you buy their terminals and pay their fees.
“We used to rely on checks, but tracking donations manually was a nightmare.”
What You Don’t Need to Accept In-Person Donations
Most small nonprofits rely on a mix of cash boxes and awkward card readers to accept in-person donations. And let’s be honest: neither one is ideal.
You don’t need…
- An (expensive!) card reader
All you really need to accept in-person donations is the one piece of tech you’re probably never without: a smartphone. If you have a tap-to-pay donation system.
What Is Tap to Pay (And Why It’s a Game-Changer for Accepting In-Person Donations)
You probably touched a contactless card or your phone to a register when you got a latte this morning. Accepting in-person donations should be just that simple.
With the right app, tap to pay, and your smartphone will turn into a donation terminal—no card reader is required.
You donors don’t have cash or checks on hand. They do have:
- A contactless credit or debit card
- Apple Pay or Google Pay on their phone
And that’s all it takes. Tap to pay technology means you can accept a donation on the spot, with just your iPhone.
No reader? No problem. Here’s when tap to pay saves the day:
Imagine you are…
- Volunteering at a school fundraiser. Your table set up is low tech, but that’s ok. You can still accept in-person donations from parents, teachers, and students (for the big class trip!) with nothing but a phone and a smile.
- Running a charity lunch in a local park. With tap to pay, your giving system is as mobile as you are. You can take your phone from table to table to collect in-person donations on the fly, all while making sure everyone gets a piece of pie.
- A board member taking a potential donor to dinner. As soon as they’re ready to give (hopefully before dessert!), you’re ready to accept an in-person donation. They don’t have to remember a checkbook, and you don’t have to bring a bulky card reader.
- Delegating to an eager new employee. You can step away from the fundraising table with confidence. Just hand your latest hire your phone, and they can continue taking donations with no card reader or cash box confusion.
- Selling t-shirts at a benefit concert. Tap to pay lets you set up a merch stand in a field, a basement, or a crowded lobby. No one is tripping on wires, no one needs wifi or an outlet, and no one is paying any fees.
- Managing the check-in table at the local talent show. And someone’s grandparents forgot to buy tickets. No problem at all. With the right tap to pay system, Granny and Grandpa can buy tickets on the spot, no internet, fees or cash required.
No more "I'll donate when I get home." Tap to pay makes accepting in-person donations a breeze, no card reader required, and zero fees charged.
The first Tap-to-Pay system built for small nonprofits, not stores
Most point of sale systems are built for retail stores, where profit, taxes, and fees are all a normal part of the game. But that’s not who you are, and it’s not what you need. Everything a small nonprofit does is in service to its mission, and fees interfere with that good work.
Zeffy, the only zero-fee fundraising platform, has created the only tap-to-pay system built specifically for small nonprofits.
Here’s what small nonprofits really need from an in-person donation tool:
- No card reader to buy or manage
- No transaction or processing fees
- Easy donor tracking and follow-up
- Compatible with your iPhone.
That’s exactly what Zeffy provides.
Tap to pay means no hardware.
After helping thousands of nonprofits keep all of the money they raise, the team at Zeffy saw the problems with accepting in-person donations. To solve them, Zeffy built a tap-to-pay app that can accept in-person donations with any IOS device, any time, anywhere. No card reader necessary.
Zeffy means no fees.
Even better? With Zeffy, accepting in-person donations is completely free.
Zeffy offers an all-in-one, zero-fee fundraising platform for nonprofits that includes:
- Online and in-person donations
Card payments mean automatic donor tracking.
When you accept an in-person donation with Zeffy’s tap-to-pay app, your Zeffy account keeps a detailed record. You’ll always know who gave what and when, so follow-up is effortless.
Change your fundraising game.
It was a “no-brainer” for Deborah Nelson and her small team to switch to Zeffy to accept in-person donations.
With Zeffy on her team, Deborah can skip driving to (and waiting in line at!) the bank and post office. She sends thank-you letters and follows up with donors online, instead of reconciling handwritten lists with handwritten thank yous.
And all that extra time? It’s well spent. Armed with just her phone (did we mention there’s no card reader required?), Deborah gets to spend more time raising more money for her students. “Zeffy provides all that, and we have more time and effort for fundraising,” Deborah says.
Still Have Questions? We Have Answers.
💳 Do I need a card reader?
Nope! No card reader or cords to mess with. Just the phone that’s already in your pocket.
Zeffy’s tap-to-pay app lets you use your phone to accept in-person donations from anyone with a contactless card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.
💸 Is Zeffy really free?
It’s really free. Zeffy will never charge a platform or transaction fee, and there is no sneaky hardware to purchase.
If a donor chooses to add a tip to support Zeffy, we’ll take it. But that is never required.
🤝 Will donors trust this?
Thousands of donors trust Zeffy every day, but don’t take our word for it.
Check out stories from nonprofits that left us a 4.9 rating on G2, or read through some of our reviews and success stories.
📋 Can I still track donations?
Yes! And with even less hassle. Every tap-to-pay transaction is recorded in your Zeffy account for easy follow-up and donor engagement.
📶 What if we don’t have reliable wifi?
Tap to Pay works using your phone’s mobile data connection. No venue wifi needed.
Donors don’t have great service? No problem. As long as you have service, you can accept in-person donations from their card.
Zeffy vs. Square
Curious how Zeffy’s tap-to-pay stacks up against popular commercial POS systems like Square? The two were created with completely different organizations in mind, and it shows in their features.
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Transaction fees
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$0
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2.6% + $0.10
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Hardware needed
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No card reader necessary
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Card reader required
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Designed for nonprofits
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Yes
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No
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Fundraising tools
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Built-in
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Not included
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Donor tracking
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Automatic
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Manual or external
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Ready to Try Tap to Pay at Your Next Event?
Skip the clunky card readers and handwritten cash donor lists at your next event. With no fees and no hardware, Zeffy’s Tap to Pay app has made accepting in-person donations easier than ever.
All you need is an eager donor and a smartphone, and we’d bet those will both be at your next event.
Try Zeffy for free—and then keep using it for free, as long as you’d like. No fees, no card reader, just your phone.
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