Accepting Online Donations: Stripe and Your Giving Page

Every GoodBooks organization gets a public giving page at https://YOUR-SUBDOMAIN.goodbooks.app/donate. Connect a Stripe account and donors can give there by card — gifts record themselves, receipts email themselves, and the money lands in your books when Stripe pays out. Online donations are included on every plan.

Connecting Stripe

Go to Settings → Online Payments. You'll see one or two options:

• Create a new Stripe account — GoodBooks starts a Stripe account for your organization and sends you through Stripe's short onboarding (bank details, organization info). Most organizations without an existing Stripe relationship take this path.
• Connect my existing Stripe account — already accept payments with Stripe? Sign in and authorize GoodBooks; you keep your existing payouts, payment history, bank details, and your own Stripe dashboard.

After connecting, the page shows your Account Status. Active — Ready to Accept Payments means you're live; Restricted means Stripe still needs something — the Complete Onboarding button takes you back to finish. Once active, the page shows your public donation page link with a copy button and a downloadable QR code — put it on bulletins, table tents, and mailings.

What donors see

The giving page carries your logo, brand colors, hero image, and intro copy. A donor enters their name and email (required — that's where the receipt goes), picks an amount (preset buttons or a custom amount), and designates the gift to one of your campaigns. Campaigns appear on the page unless you've turned off their "Show on main donate page" switch.

Fee coverage: a pre-checked box reads "Yes, increase my donation to cover processing fees." Donors who leave it checked pay a slightly higher charge so your organization nets the full intended gift — and they're receipted for the full amount they paid. Donors can uncheck it.

Payment is by card, or by bank account if you've turned that on (see below). After giving, the donor sees your thank-you message and gets the gift receipt by email automatically.

There's no recurring-gift option on the page today — each gift is one-time.

Offering bank account (ACH) payments

Cards are convenient, but their fees grow with the gift. For the donors who write your biggest checks, a bank-account payment costs a fraction as much. On Settings → Online Payments, the Bank Account (ACH) Donations box has one button: Offer bank account (ACH) payments. Turn it on and the giving page shows a Pay With choice, Credit / Debit Card or Bank Account (ACH), above the fee-coverage box. The same choice appears on your membership page and on invoice pay links.

What a donor who picks bank account sees:

• Most banks let them sign in and verify instantly; the gift is authorized on the spot.
• Otherwise they type routing and account numbers, and two small deposits land in their account in a day or two. A Verify now page (linked from the thank-you screen and from the email they receive) asks for the two amounts, or the six-character code on the deposit description, and the gift is authorized once they enter it.
• Either way the money takes about four business days to clear. The thank-you page says so.

What you see: the gift appears under Donations right away with an amber ACH Processing badge. It doesn't count in any total or report until it clears, and the receipt isn't sent yet. When the bank confirms the payment, the gift flips to completed, the receipt goes out, and it settles through a deposit batch like a card gift. If the bank returns the payment (closed account, insufficient funds), the gift is marked failed with the bank's reason, and nothing hits your books.

Organizations that connected an existing Stripe account rather than creating one through GoodBooks need to enable ACH Direct Debit in their own Stripe dashboard; the button tells you if that's the case.

Stop offering bank payments on the same page turns the option off; gifts already in progress still complete.

Making the page yours

Settings → Customization: - Donation Page tab — hero image (1200×400 px), the intro copy under "Donate to [Your Org]", the thank-you message, and the social share text. - Brand tab — colors and tagline; Organization tab — your logo.

Fees

Two fees come out of each online gift:

• Processing fee. Card gifts: 2.9% + 30¢. Bank account (ACH) gifts: 0.8%, capped at $5.00 per gift.
• GoodBooks platform fee: 0.25% on every plan, plus $1.00 per gift on the Free plan.

On a $1,000 gift that works out to about $32 by card and $7.50 by bank account. When donors cover fees (most leave the box checked), the charge is grossed up for whichever method they chose, and your organization nets the full gift amount either way.

How online gifts reach your books

1. The gift appears under Donations immediately — donor matched (or created) by email, campaign designation attached, card brand (or bank) and last four recorded. The receipt has already gone out. (Bank-account gifts sit as ACH Processing for a few days first; see above.)
2. When Stripe pays out to your bank (typically every couple of days), a deposit batch is created for that payout and settles automatically — one register entry matching the bank deposit to the penny, fees booked.

You don't touch any of it. Cash and checks are the ones you enter yourself — see Batch Gift Entry.

Good to know

• Each campaign can also get its own focused giving page with its own URL — see Campaign Landing Pages (Core and up).
• Membership organizations get a second public page for online joins and renewals — see Letting Members Join and Renew Online.
• In-person card readers aren't available yet — connected accounts are pre-approved for in-person payments so nothing needs re-onboarding when that ships, but today online cards, cash, and checks are the ways to give.
• Disconnecting Stripe stops online giving immediately; everything already recorded stays in your books.