08/30/2026
We did our Homework! 💪
Several major software platforms for nonprofits, including GoFundMe, GiveButter, DonorBox and more, are being investigated and sued for deceptive practices related to donation processing fees. These systems are often advertised to nonprofits as “free” for them to use. The way they do this, they say, is to ask donors to pay the processing fees. Nothing wrong with that, right? They will never charge the nonprofit a fee, they say. But what they don’t make clear is that they are charging much higher than normal processing fees, because not everyone donates the processing fee, and they need to make money. Additionally, they will often default the choice to pay processing fees to “on”, so the donor is not making a conscious decision. The end result is overpayment of fees with the extra money going into the payment processor’s pocket, instead of our charity.
In our software selection, we purposely made sure that our donors and our organization would not be taken advantage of! We use the well regarded Stripe payment processor which provides us with a discounted nonprofit processing fee, one of the lowest processing fees to be found. We pay it on every transaction - whether it is generously paid by the donor or our organization. We value our supporters’ contributions and protect them from these deceptive practices.
Please always use our website linked donation pages to submit a convenient online donation, or mail us a check (no fees)! If you do pay a fee for your donation to SSJB, you know you are truly helping us by paying for this service and you are not overpaying!
Thank you for your support! 💗
