Online Giving Portal
TimelyChurch provides a branded public giving page where your members and visitors can make secure online donations using their credit or debit card. The page supports one-time and recurring gifts.
Prerequisites
Before the online giving page works, you must:
- Set up Stripe Connect -- Complete the Stripe onboarding process (see Setting Up Online Giving).
- Enable online giving -- Turn on the Enable Online Giving switch on the Online Giving Setup page.
- Have at least one active fund with online giving enabled -- Funds must have the Enable Online Giving option turned on to appear on the public page.
Accessing the Public Giving Page
Your church's giving page has its own public web address that you can find and copy from the Giving dashboard (see "Sharing the Giving Page" below). You can share this link anywhere -- email, social media, or your church website.
Custom-Domain Alias
If your church has been set up with a custom domain, the giving page is also accessible at:
https://yourcustomdomain.com/giveNote: The custom-domain giving address is an optional, setup-dependent feature and is not enabled by default on every plan. If you want a giving link on your own domain, contact support to confirm the domain and certificate setup for your church.
Sharing the Giving Page
On the Giving page, click the More actions menu (three-dot icon) and select Share online giving form. The Share Online Giving Form window gives you:
- The Giving Page URL with a Copy button, to paste into emails, social media, or your church website.
- An Email button under Or share via: that starts an email with the link already in it.
The link works on all devices -- desktop, tablet, and mobile.
How the Giving Page Works for Donors
Step 1: Choose Giving Frequency
Donors select how often they want to give:
- One-time -- A single donation.
- Weekly -- Automatically charged every week.
- Monthly -- Automatically charged every month.
- Yearly -- Automatically charged once per year.
When a recurring frequency is selected, a note is displayed: "You can cancel anytime — from your emailed receipt or by signing in with your email. No calls, no waiting."
Step 2: Enter Donation Amount
Donors can select a preset amount (25, 50, 100, or 250 in your church's currency) or type a custom amount. The minimum donation is 1.00 and the maximum is 999,999.99.
Step 3: Select a Fund
If your church has multiple funds with online giving enabled, a Designate to Fund dropdown appears (your default fund is preselected). If only one fund is available, it is used automatically and the dropdown is hidden.
Step 4: Provide Donor Information
| Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Your Name | No | The donor's name. Disabled if giving anonymously. |
| Conditional | Marked "(for receipt)" on one-time gifts and "(required for recurring)" on recurring gifts. Disabled when a one-time gift is given anonymously. | |
| Give anonymously | No | Available only for one-time gifts. The gift is recorded without the donor's name or email. |
Important: What happens when email is omitted on a one-time gift
If a donor leaves the email field blank on a one-time donation, two things happen:
- No emailed receipt is sent. TimelyChurch only queues the donation receipt email when an email address is captured.
- The donation is not auto-linked to a person record. TimelyChurch matches online donations to people by email address. With no email, the donation is stored with the donor's typed name (if provided) but is not linked to anyone in your directory.
Unlinked donations are excluded from year-end giving statements until you manually edit the donation and assign a person. If you want full statement coverage, encourage donors to enter an email, or plan a year-end review to link any orphaned donations to people in your directory.
Step 5: Enter Payment Details
The Payment Details section is Stripe's secure card form. Donors enter their card number, expiration date, CVC, and billing zip code directly in the Stripe-hosted fields, so card details go straight to Stripe.
Step 6: Submit the Donation
The submit button shows the exact amount and frequency:
- "Give $50.00" (one-time)
- "Give $50.00/week" (weekly)
- "Give $50.00/month" (monthly)
- "Give $50.00/year" (yearly)
After clicking, the button shows a "Processing..." spinner while the payment is submitted.
Below the button the page reassures donors: "Secured by Stripe. Your payment information is encrypted." and "You'll be charged exactly the amount you enter — no added fees. [Church name] covers the card-processing cost so you don't have to."
Step 7: Confirmation
On successful payment, the donor is redirected to a Thank You! page. If the donor provided an email address, a donation receipt is automatically emailed (recurring donors are told "You will receive a receipt after each payment.").
What Happens Behind the Scenes
One-Time Donations
- The payment is securely processed through Stripe on your church's connected account.
- After the payment is confirmed, TimelyChurch records the donation -- marked as an online card gift and assigned to the fund the donor selected (or your default fund if none was chosen).
- A matching accounting entry is created automatically.
- A receipt email is queued for the donor.
Recurring Donations
- Stripe sets up the recurring schedule for the donor's chosen amount and interval (weekly, monthly, or yearly).
- The donor completes the first payment to activate the recurring gift.
- Stripe handles all future charges automatically.
- Each successful recurring charge is recorded as a new donation in TimelyChurch.
Donor Matching
When an online donation is recorded, TimelyChurch attempts to match the donor to an existing person in your church directory by comparing the provided email address. If a match is found, the donation is linked to that person's record, contributing to their giving history and statements.
If no match is found, the donation is stored with the donor's name and email but without a person link. You can manually link it later by editing the donation.
Security Features
- Stripe's secure card form -- Payment information is collected in Stripe's own embedded form and goes straight to Stripe.
- Duplicate-charge protection -- If a donor accidentally double-clicks the submit button, only one charge goes through.
- Church verification -- Every payment is tied to your specific church, and TimelyChurch confirms each donation belongs to the correct church before recording it, so funds are never mixed up between churches.
- Fund validation -- The selected fund is verified to belong to the church, be active, and have online giving enabled before processing.
- HTTPS encryption -- The entire giving page runs over HTTPS.
Unavailable State
If online giving is not enabled, or Stripe is not ready to accept charges, donors see an Online Giving Unavailable page instead of the giving form: "Online giving is currently not available for [Church name]. Please contact the church office for other ways to give." It has a Return to [Church name] link and does not display an error.
Branding
The public giving page displays:
- Your church's logo (if uploaded) or your church's name as a text heading.
- A "Powered by TimelyChurch" footer link.
- The "Secured by Stripe" notice and the "no added fees" note.
- Your fund names in the fund selection dropdown.
The page uses your church's branding automatically -- no additional configuration is needed.