Switching to Breeze’s online and text giving can be very worthwhile, but navigating the implementation of a new platform and communicating it with your congregation can feel a bit daunting. Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered!
Here, we share the benefits of using Breeze’s online and text giving, show you how to have a smooth transition, and provide the best practices for communicating the switch so you retain all of your loyal givers.
Benefits of Using Breeze’s Online and Text Giving
- Cost effect! $0/monthly fee with standard processing fees.
- Time savings! Auto Entry of Giving in Breeze and quick associations with profiles.
- Consolidate tools
- Robust reports, Full Reconciliation Reports provided with Bank Transfers.
- Customizable online giving page that can be embedded or linked anywhere.
- Text and online giving are available.
- Ability to easily generate giving statements from Breeze, with all giving in one system.
- Members can manage their own giving with ease!
- Staff Workload Reduction in payment processing (as compared to in-person giving) because you will not need to enter giving into Breeze, connect to people, or bring the deposit to the bank.
- Stripe is our secure back-end provider for Online Giving and handles all transaction security with bank-level security processing. Here’s more information on Stripe's Security.
Moving Your Givers Into Breeze and Setting Up Your Account
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Ensure that all of your legacy system historical giving data is in Breeze.
- You can move in historical data by Importing Giving or by submitting a Move In Request if you are new to Breeze.
- Setup Online Giving in Breeze.
- Customize your giving page.
- Share the Online Giving Page or text giving number.
Best Practices to Communicate the Transition to Givers
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Set a deadline for turning off your legacy provider.
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The first thing we suggest doing in this process is to set a date to end the connection with your old processor. You should share this cutoff date with your givers as soon as possible.
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Keep both giving platforms live for a period of time.
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This may be anywhere from 4-20 weeks or whatever works best for your organization. You will want to remove the legacy option from being available to givers, but don't shut it down until all donors have moved over.
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Communicate consistently and clearly with givers.
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Donors need to know why you're switching digital giving providers (to make it easier to donate, to give more options, to ease admin burden, to save costs, etc). Donors also need to know how to set up a new gift and the timeline in which it needs to be done.
For churches, we recommend announcing live on a Sunday and following up with an email to the congregation that includes your online giving link and text giving number as well as step-by-step instructions showing how to give. Continue to remind donors on a weekly basis.
You can also utilize these free resources to communicate your new way to give via social media, on slides during services, and wherever you share information.
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Cancel the legacy provider.
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Once you’ve moved everyone over to Breeze’s online giving, it’s time to say goodbye to your legacy provider. Send one more email sharing the date the legacy provider will be turned off.
The good news is in the long run, you'll get to enjoy a consolidated system that is saving you time and money and providing more options for your donors!
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Steps to Transition Your Recurring Givers
We get a lot of questions about transferring recurring donations from your old payment processor to Breeze's Online Giving tool. Because this information is stored within a payment processor, we aren't able to transfer those recurring gifts automatically in, and it requires the gift being setup by the giver in Breeze. Here are the steps to successfully transfer your recurring donors over to Breeze Online Giving.
Step 1: Send out an email notification to all recurring givers.
Explain why you are switching platforms, and share the final date that you will be accepting gifts with the old processor. Include a link to your new Breeze Online Giving Page with instructions on how they can establish recurring giving and remind them to cancel the recurring gift from the legacy platform.
We suggest sending an email every week with a reminder to move to the new giving system for all individuals with recurring gifts still attached to your old processor.
Note: For easy communication, you could easily add all of these individuals to a Tag in Breeze.
Step 2: Keep Track of Who's Moving
After people begin to establish their recurring giving in Breeze, keep track of that movement and check that their recurring gift on the legacy provider has been stopped.
A simple way to track that movement in Breeze is to remove them from the Tag you created in step one. This ensures that any additional communication about moving to Breeze will not be sent to individuals who have transferred over.
Here’s a look at how to View and Modify Recurring Donations to see who has set up recurring gifts in Breeze.
REMEMBER! Do not turn off the legacy system until every recurring donation has been set up in Breeze.
Step 3: Final Call
One week before the end date with the old processor you have selected, we've found it best to personally call the individuals that are yet to switch over to Breeze. During this phone call, you can reiterate your thanks for their loyal support and either walk them through the transfer process over the phone or offer to establish a recurring gift for them.
Note: You will need full payment information to establish recurring giving on behalf of an individual and we do not suggest this information be passed via email. This information should be (if shared at all), shared in person or over the phone. If you set the gift on behalf of the giver, you will need to do this through your Online Giving Page link.
Free Resources
We want to ensure you’re equipped with material that makes communicating with one-time and recurring givers easy and straightforward. Enjoy free resources that you can customize and download as you’re making the switch.
Marketing Materials for your Online Giving through Breeze