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:

1. Set up Stripe Connect -- Complete the Stripe onboarding process (see Setting Up Online Giving).
2. Enable online giving -- Toggle the online giving switch to "Enabled" in your Stripe Connect settings.
3. Have at least one active fund with online giving enabled -- Funds must have the "Online Giving Enabled" 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/give

Note: 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

From the Giving dashboard, click the More Actions menu and select Share Online Giving Form. This provides you with:

• A direct link to copy and share via email, social media, or your church website.
• The URL 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 email receipt."

Step 2: Enter Donation Amount

Donors can select a preset amount ($25, $50, $100, $250) 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 dropdown appears allowing donors to designate their gift to a specific fund. If only one fund is available, it is selected automatically and the dropdown is hidden.

Step 4: Provide Donor Information

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:

1. No emailed receipt is sent. TimelyChurch only queues the donation receipt email when an email address is captured.
2. 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 form is powered by Stripe Elements, a secure and PCI-compliant payment interface. Donors enter their card number, expiration date, CVC, and billing zip code directly in the Stripe-hosted form fields. Payment data never touches your server.

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.

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.

What Happens Behind the Scenes

One-Time Donations

1. The payment is securely processed through Stripe on your church's connected account.
2. 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).
3. A matching accounting entry is created automatically.
4. A receipt email is queued for the donor.

Recurring Donations

1. Stripe sets up the recurring schedule for the donor's chosen amount and interval (weekly, monthly, or yearly).
2. The donor completes the first payment to activate the recurring gift.
3. Stripe handles all future charges automatically.
4. 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 Elements -- Payment information is collected through Stripe's secure, PCI-compliant embedded form. Card data never passes through your server.
• Idempotency protection -- Duplicate charges are prevented using Stripe idempotency keys. 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 properly configured, donors see an "unavailable" page instead of the giving form. This page informs them that online giving is not currently available 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 Stripe-branded "Secured by Stripe" notice.
• Your fund names in the fund selection dropdown.

The page uses your church's branding automatically -- no additional configuration is needed.