Electronic giving - What did we ever do without it.

We are very fortunate to be able to us Faithlife Giving. We hope to add additional features to our Faithlife Giving program as they become available.

Pros

Electronic giving has become an essential part of our church's stewardship program. There have been Sundays when electronic giving has almost equaled in person/by U.S. mail giving. Electronic giving was important before COVID. In the age of COVID, it is essential. Having access to giving records on one's Faithlife account is essential.

Cons

Our Senior Pastor is working with Faithlife staff to set up a mechanism so that we can take payment for events such as poinsettia purchases at Christmas and lily purchases at Easter.

Worth your time to check out Faithlife giving

So far, we are pleased!

Pros

Easy to implement, less expensive to use than several other processing programs.

Cons

The $ transfer to my account is the same as other software. It would be very nice to see it in one day instead of two.

Customer Success Happiness!!

The feature that is really attractive to us is having the ability to produce statements in real time as we are a small congregation and to some our finance system may be somewhat dated however, this makes everything much simpler and easier for our finance team.

Pros

Our purpose for purchasing this product was to be able to provide our members with alternative ways of giving . What I like most is the customer service support and being provided with our own Customer Success Manger. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] is assigned to us and she was friendly, supportive and eager to assist in any way. She made it very easy for me to understand what I was doing correctly and incorrectly and was able to provide answers to all of my questions and information that she was unclear about she was able to get the answers in real time. We also like having the ability to create statements with ease as well as those members who are able to create their own as well. This is a very simple and easy software to learn and is user friendly.

Cons

At this writing we have no concerns regarding the software as we are new users and there may be some glitches along the way but overall there are no immediate concerns.

Good solution for Faithlife Users

This solution helped bring online giving to our church. It is not mainstream so it does require users to set up a new account to support repeat giving.

Pros

This integrates well with the Faithlife suite of products.

Cons

Does not work well with outside products or alternative ways of payment.

An Integrated Giving Solution

We have enjoyed the experience.

Pros

We most liked having the giving feature built into the groups app, website, and text to give. Bundling all of the services together also saved us on the cost over our previous online giving solution.

Cons

We have not found any drawback on the use end of the software. We would like to see the ability for greater customization on batching of deposits and the running of reports.

New to Faithlife Giving

Easy to use so far and looking forward to better experiences and more online givers.

Pros

The user interface is simple and easy to use. As a user and in a smaller church the ability to cover the transactions fees is a huge plus and makes me feel more part of the church in handling some of the processing burden and allowing my offering to be used for the ministry instead of fees. Mobile and online are the same experience versus other systems I've used.

Cons

Only issue I have is from a Admin side - there is no way to indicate a non tax exempt amount. For example if the giver was purchasing a book or paying for a youth activity as many now do - there is no way currently in the system to flag that as a non tax-exempt amount since that giver is receiving a service or item.

Faithlife Giving is a terrific product. It is easy to use and affordable.

My experience have great! Great phone supported really no hiccups.

Pros

The product is very easy to use. It was easy to setup.

Cons

The cost could be lower. But I really don't have any issues with its functionality.

great product

its great

Pros

its a easy way to give to your ministry, and I love the options to pay for charging fee and option to re-occur gift

Cons

The main page can be confusing when trying to navigate

Love Love Love the ease of use and functionality

Pros

Very quick to implement and get set up. Very easy to share and embed into websites, cost per transaction is very low and 99% of the time is covered by the giver.

Cons

There are no features that I do not enjoy.

Great Online Giving Tool

Pros

I really love that you can make an account and all your information is remembered for easy use when you return!

Cons

It's a small thing, but I don't love that a new tab is opened when you use the software. I wish our website was redirected to make it seem smoother and more professional.

One of the better Giving products on the market

We are enjoying using this product. Wish it were not tied to Faithlfie Social so tightly, but otherwise a solid experience.

Pros

You can be set up and running in about 10 minutes! We took our first donation about 15 minutes after applying. Very seamless donor experience.

Cons

I dont like how it ties into Faithlife social media so heavily. I wish it were its own product, as the settings on Faithlfie can be confusing at times. But otherwise, a great product.

Affordable, Useable, and Effective Online Giving

Pros

Drop Pushpay and pick up Faithlife Giving. This affordable, easy-to-use giving platform provides inexpensive fees with customization for your church members. They can track their giving and set goals. I highly recommend. This product out performs Pushpay for much, much, much less money.

Cons

There was nothing we dislike about Faithlife Giving.

A Great Giving Solution, Especially for those Already Using Faithlife Sites

This service was a great addition to our church website and an absolute life-saver with the pandemic where people weren't able to make it out to give to the church in person. Many congregants find it so easy to give this way that they now prefer it. Overall we are very satisfied with this service.

Pros

This feature is a no-brainer for those already using Faithlife Sites. It is free to add on for many. Those who make lots of use of the service or are from bigger churches might want to use the paid plan to lessen any processing fees for the giving. The integration on the website is nice-looking, easy to use, and I appreciate features such as specifying funds, making gifts recurring, and encouraging givers to cover any processing fees for their electronic gift. There are nice tracking and report features built into the Faithlife profile dashboard.

Cons

There is a small processing fee for any electronic transactions. You can make this fee smaller by signing up for their premium service. This is unavoidable however for pretty much any kind of online giving.

All Inclusive Giving iption

We have used virtual giving options for a while now so when the pandemic kept us out of our regular church gathering, we were not heavily affected financially. However, when trying to come up with a way to keep our church family connected via an online community outside of face book, I ran across faithlife community information in my Logos software that I've had for years. With a suite of tools I already use, I wish I had come across it sooner and just did everything through faithlife equip, which I might still do once some of the features are enhanced to fit what do already. The giving option just felt right in conjunction with the online community.

Pros

I liked that all electronic giving options are available: mobile giving, online giving, website embed, text-to-give; and even a "give" button in faithlife community. The deposits are automatic and the ability to track all giving is really easy to do. The fees are comparable to other software I've used but the all inclusive options make it a better option for me.

Cons

Not sure I have any complaints at this time.

Faithlife Giving has given us peace of mind

Very easy to setup and integrate into our platform, great customer support!

Pros

The greatest feature is the integrated nature of the donation itself and the donor. The donor is in complete control of their profile and can pull their giving records at any time. Since they are using their Faithlife account, they also have reminders to participate in groups and chats. Given the changes COVID has caused, online resources and connections are key and Faithlife Giving has sustained our donations even though we were not meeting face to face.

Cons

The fee's are normal for industry, but using a credit card processor comes at a price.

Great Product

Our experience has been top-notch. I have no complaints!

Pros

Faithlife Giving has been a life-saver during the Covid-19 pandemic. I shopped around for a viable, reliable online giving solution and Faitlife comes through once again. Faithlife treats you like family, and their products are easy to set up and use. We have switched most of our services to the Faithlife platform. Faithlife also works to improve the product daily, and their support team is quick to take care of any issues that may arise. I would recommend this product to anyone, and I have done so. Their pricing is very fair also.

Cons

Honestly, I cannot think of any! It is easy to use and it is cost effective.

Super easy to use

I have not had any problems with Faithlife Giving. Our organization was looking for a low-cost option for online giving which Faithlife offered. There is even an option for individuals to text to give, which we have not had the opportunity to use. This product more than meets the needs of our organization.

Pros

Faithlife Giving is super easy to use as well as send out for others to use to donate to our organization. We have had zero issues with the initial set-up or the continual use of this product. We literally set it up and have forgotten it, because it works fine on it's own.

Cons

I honestly can't think of anything that I don't like about this software.

Great Product

No issues with any part of the process. Setup went smoothly, donors have never complained about the experience.

Pros

Intergates into our website and our app with ease. Donor able to cover fees.

Cons

Little bit of a re-education process for our regular users.

I love Faithlife Giving

Pros

What I enjoy most about FG is its ease of use. It’s very easy to teach others how to use it. I also love how it creates AND sends the giving statements at the end of the year. So easy.

Cons

I honestly don’t think I have anything bad to say about FG.

Affordable & Effective

Giving to a church with cash or a check generally does not trigger banking fees but online giving does cost extra. Faithlife Giving gives donors the option of covering the processing fee and we have had donors use that feature. Choosing Faithlife has been a good experience.

Pros

Faithlife Giving has most or all of the same features that other programs have. Our goal was to offer a method of online giving and payments that did not have high processing fees, nor a monthly extra charge. Faithlife Giving offered the desirable features at a fair price. The possibility of integrating with some of their other products is also attractive, though we have not yet done that. What we like most, then, is the price and it works well.

Cons

We had no issues with integration into our system, there are no "cons" to this software.

Easy to set up giving platform for churches

Faithlife makes great products to support the church, and Giving was a real lifesaver back in the early days of the Covid pandemic. It allowed our church to continue to take in donations and maintain financial operations.

Pros

Ease of setting up for giving to our church only needed a few pieces of information. Very simple to embed a link to Faithlife Giving on our church's website. Supports multiple transaction types, i.e. bank account or debit/credit card. Allows givers to designate money to specific funds.

Cons

It would be nice to have the option export to the QuickBooks format, as right now exporting of donations is only through CSV. This means entering all donations into QuickBooks has to be performed manually. Minor thing, but it would save a lot of time in the end. Another negative is if a single person gives money under two separate names (e.g. a husband and wife use different names for the family's giving), it shows up as two separate accounts. There should be a way to track givers based on email? Maybe there is and I am missing it.

Nice platform that integrates with other Faithlife products.

Pros

Faithlife Giving was easy to set up and it is easy to use for our church members. It integrates with other Faithlife products like their church management software and website. Best thing about all Faithlife products is their fantastic customer service. Rates are lower that those of our previous provider.

Cons

We had some issues up front with gifts being made by individual givers not showing up in their giving records properly a lot of work was required to merge records in order to produce accurate giving statements in 2019. Fortunately those issues have been resolved this year. Since the entire Faithlife Equip platform is a work in progress, there are occasional bugs in the platform, but it most cases they have been addressed and fixed in a timely manner.

Good Online Giving Option for Churches

We are very pleased with Faithlife. During the initial COVID lockdowns in our state we had to quickly setup online giving and Faithlie stepped up to assist churches. They also waived their fees for 6 mos. They provide plenty of user education resources and customer service has been responsive when we had questions.

Pros

Ease of use and integration. Our members can easily go to our website and give using the software. They are also able to customize and designate their gifts as well as setup recurring giving. Also integrates well with other Faithlife products. Also like the immediate email receipt issued to those who give as well as providing an option for givers to pay for the fees that the church would normally absorb.

Cons

Would like to see a better user display.

Giving is simple

Pros

Love how easy it is for people to give. A couple steps and it’s complete.

Cons

There is nothing that I don’t like about this feature.

Product support is amazing!

I cannot say enough... use the videos, there are dozens of them. In the search box just type in your question! It, and the help of [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] made my experience so much easier than I anticipated!

Pros

This was the first time I took on implementing a new way of giving for our church. Being an elderly senior, I was skeptical, however with the help of [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and the videos available at Faithlife the job was accomplished without a nervous breakdown! Once implemented it was easy to learn to integrate the information into Servant Keeper and made my job so much easier. It also eliminates errors because with the past way I had to do this task manually.

Cons

I can't say there were any cons outside of my limited knowledge of computer workings!

Giving made easy, good value.

Faithlife Giving has been essential for keeping our donors during the COVID-19 lockdowns. We had it in place for about 8 months before the lockdown, and most of our major donors were already using that avenue for their gifts, and many of our other givers chose to use Faithlife Giving online instead of mailing in checks.

Pros

Faithlife Giving provides options for giving from website or from text. It is easy to set up multiple funds that donors can select, and donors can choose to use credit, debit, or direct checking account as their giving source. Giving records are easy to download and print for donor's records.

Cons

There is no PayPal option. Printing was not as easy to manage in terms of font size, etc., as it should have been .

Best I have found

Easy to use and during covid when the doors were closed we still had people giving, what a blessing.

Pros

The automated giving receipts, the ability for a giver to take care of the service cost, and the ease of use.

Cons

I have not found a con at this time and have had no issues with the product.

Review Pricing Details

I found it to be an inexpensive starter option while not something we would want to stick with once our number and size of donations grew.

Pros

I love that they offer an option with no monthly fee and no limit on number of donations. This is perfect for a church receiving just a few donations and/or small donations.

Cons

The pricing structure can get far more expensive if you collect larger donations and paying 1% of ACH transactions is quite high.

Great for the small church

Pros

Our congregation is on the smaller side. We usually average 50 to 100 people per week in attendance. Giving has allowed us to add in a chance for congregants to give consistently in a modern financial world.

Cons

There was a little bit of difficulty in routing to a savings account. I did not find any documentation stating that account needed to be checking, so we opted for savings to have better interest accrued. There were some issues with the direct deposit system from faith life zooming the account was checking, but it seems to be rectified at this point.

The ease of online giving

Faithlife Giving has increased giving for our non profit. While we were initially worried about paying the fees, most givers have paid those themselves and our donations have not decreased. Most people have been excited to use online giving to make their life easier as well.

Pros

Faithlife Giving is so easy to use. Setup took less than 10 minutes and customer service was quick to get my account set up. It has been easy for our givers to use and it has increased our reoccurring donations as they can set it and forget it.

Cons

The only thing that I can cite as a negative as that it sometimes takes 3-4 days for donations to process. I don't know if that's how long it normally takes, but it isn't a quick turn around.

Our giving has increased with online option

Pros

It was seamless to offer this during our online only church meeting to our congregation so our giving was not really affected by not meeting in person, then after we did go back to meeting in person some have stayed with online giving and we have seen steady growth where our other giving has been affected by COVID and fewer meeting in person. We receive email notification of new gifts which is helpful.

Cons

Some of our givers have had some technical issues with the process

Faithlife Biving

Started using in March when COVID shut down our weekly church gathering. Works well; does what it says.

Pros

Easy to set-up and use. When COVID hit, they came through for our church!

Cons

Nothing. It was easy to get going from the start.

Perfect giving platform for a small church or new ministry

I like the fact that I am able to quickly process financial gifts and givers are able to request and receive their financial records easily.

Pros

I was starting a new ministry and I liked the fact that I was able to set up my online giving at no charge to the ministry. I also like the fact that it is able to provide donors with a record of their giving.

Cons

I would love to see a giving link on each tab.

Helped get our church into online giving overnight

Great! It was easy to setup and no maintaining.

Pros

Works with our Faithlife Sites and was very easy and fast to set up.

Cons

It is not one used by our Annual conference.

Faithlife Giving: Best Solution for Church Accounting

Pros

It really helps to extend the ministry through the donations that have been collected through Faithlife Giving. As a minister, we also can easily know the church's financial data. How good is it!

Cons

The functionality is so good, but it could be better with a lower cost for each month's subscription.

A coronavirus silver lining

It has been a true blessing to have this as an additional tool that we can use to glorify God.

Pros

Faithlife Giving has allowed our church congregation to be able to support the church through their tithes even when they were not able to be present in person. It has helped our finances to hold up even through these rough few months.

Cons

Nothing really. It has been a slow start to get some of the members on board with the new tech but now they love it.

Great for Giving

Our experience is great outside of the fees charged to those that are giving.

Pros

Faithlife Giving is easy to set up with customer service. However, the fees that are charged to use this feature are too expensive for that giving. I am grateful it is included in our package.

Cons

The additional fees charged to use this feature for those that are giving.

Online Giving

Love it

Pros

Since Covid-19 we have able to take online payments.

Cons

Wish it had a separate app. I really have complaints.

Easy to use.

Pros

Simplifies the giving process espcially during lockdown

Cons

No problems. I enjoyed using the product.

Great Online Giving Platform

Pros

Ease of set up. I had very little problems setting this up myself and I am not the techiest person.

Cons

Honestly, I have not seen any issues with this platform as yet. The issues have usually been on the using end not of or end.

Great Bonus for Our Church

Been a positive experience for our church. During Covid lockdown, a helpful way for people to keep up with their giving. Glad we already had it in place before the shutdown in March.

Pros

- Very easy to integrate into our church website with a simple link people can click on. - Very easy to use. - Can set up recurring donations.

Cons

Nothing I dislike about it. It's very easy to use.

Integration Excels

When COVID hit, our church did not have an online giving option. We were able to quickly add Faithlife giving to our setup at no cost. It integrated with our Faithlife Site and Proclaim. The only issue we have had is trying to get more people to utilize it.

Pros

Integration with Proclaim and Faithlife Sites and free Text-to-Give

Cons

Nothing that I have come across in use

Very easy to use

Overall: great!

Pros

I liked the most was the fact that you can text to give

Cons

Some members were confused over the whole process, however once they figured it out, it was still fairly easy to use afterwards

Giving made easy

Easy to navigate for givers and for the receiving end of our accounting.

Pros

The donators have the easily identifiable option of submitting a one-time gift or a recurring gift.

Cons

The first option listed is for the Benevolence Fund, and not for General Fund giving. This has led to some confusion on the intended use for a gift.

helpful for our small church

Pros

Customer service was helpful to get us started. We "set it and forget it" - very low maintenance. We have people attend church on shift-work and can't always come to church, but they are thankful to give online. Many younger people (millennial) like the online giving options. The software gives updates and reports that are helpful for record keeping.

Cons

There are no cons I'm aware of. Our finance team has access to this software and we are happy with its performance.

Has Been Exactly What We Needed

Pros

So simple to set up and use and for the whole team to engage with.

Cons

Not sure there are any issues that I would consider a con.

Simple to Use

No issues at all. Consistent giving has been a blessing for the church.

Pros

Really simple set-up. Easy to use. Almost plug and play.

Cons

Some of the reports have been difficult to download/print, but that has gotten much better as we've gone along.

Simplify your giving!

Overall I am very happy with faithlife giving and would definitely recommend it.

Pros

Very easy to use and helpful especially during this season of ministry.

Cons

Nothing I can really think of as it is very easy to use.

Faithlife giving

Pros

The product is easy to implement and user friendly.

Cons

It is difficult to say. This was our first journey into online giving and it has worked well for us.

Giving is GREAT for your church!

Pros

Once we went digital, so many of our members found this MUCH more convenient!

Cons

No issues with this implementation. People love the option.