Transaction Charges Explained

One of the most frequent questions we get asked is about how One Donation charges for the services we offer. We get asked this question by our donors, non-profits, employers seeking to offer payroll donations for their employees. At the end of the day, One Donation wants as much of the donation to end up in the hands of the non-profit as is possible.

The most important thing for our donors to understand is that One Donation charges a $0.50 transaction fee. That fee does not change whether you donate $5 or $500. One Donation seeks to cover our out of pocket expenses and deliver the most value to the non-profit as possible.

If you make a credit card donation, we are charged a variable processing rate by the credit card companies. One Donation deducts the amount charged by the credit card companies in addition to our $0.50 transaction fee. The charge from the credit card companies are not marked up – again, One Donation wants to pass as much onto your desired non-profit as possible.

The One Donation platform is growing and one of our new donation tools offered is payroll donations. If you make a payroll donation, the $0.50 transaction fee is all that is deducted from the full donation amount. Thus, more of your donation will end up in the hands of the non-profit should you sign up for payroll donations vs using our smartphone application for traditional credit card donations.

Payroll donations represent a donation efficiency beyond credit card donations – often this efficiency is even more than what the non-profit can achieve if they process and record all donations directly. For this reason, One Donation is not only living up to our goal to make giving easy, we are also adding value to your donations.

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Have You Ever Played A Sport?

Were you good?

How did you get better?

In thinking of my childhood, I was an OK baseball player. I was never the best but I was not picked last either. I was fortunate to have older brother so I was constantly trying to keep up with them and not fall behind. To keep up with them I quickly learned that I needed to practice, learn from other players better than I, and from the direction of my coaches.

One Donation started as an OK smartphone app for giving to non-profits. We listened to users and realized that more and more were asking about how to make our technology even more accessible. They were also asking about how to decrease the transaction costs so that more of the donation ended up in the hands of the non-profit. This led One Donation down a path of discovery and we are excited about the recent developments. In addition to updating our smartphone application, we are building a system which will allow donors the ability to give with a payroll deduction to their favorite non-profits.

Would you like for your company to take payroll deductions from your check and send them to your favorite nonprofit?  Please fill out this short form and a representative from One Donation will follow up shortly.

https://onedonation.org/payroll-request/ 

If you have any comments about the blog or questions for the One Donation team please send a message to founders@onedonation.org.

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Beta Testers – iOS & Android

One Donation is looking for beta testers of their upcoming iOS and Android application release. The One Donation platform is on a mission to make giving easy. Through the One Donation application, users can search over 1.5 million non-profits, make a one-time, weekly or monthly donation and then track all donations for tax purposes.

Feedback from beta testers and users is our primary measure of success. Put simply, we want to know if we are indeed making giving easier.

Your feedback will help to change the world One Donation at a time.

https://onedonation.org/betatester/

While we are currently seeking beta testers for our smartphone application, the One Donation platform is a whole lot more. As a registered beta tester you will receive additional information regarding the developments of our other core functions including ecommerce, live event campaigns, and payroll deduction donations.

If you are interested in being a beta tester for One Donation, please visit the link below and complete the short form. A team member from One Donation will follow up with you shortly afterward to complete the setup:

https://onedonation.org/betatester/

If you want to find out more about One Donation and our platform, please contact our founding team at founders@onedonation.org

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One World. One Company. One Donation.

When the word sustainability is mentioned in conversation, not everyone has the same understanding of what it means. When you google the term, two definitions are provided:

  1. the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
  2. avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance.

No matter how the word fits or does not fit into your life, it is a common buzzword that people, companies and governments are incorporating in their daily lives. Whether or not you agree and participate, sustainability is all around you.  

Do you compost or have recycling picked up at your home or office?

Have you ever seen a street lamp replaced?

Have you ever had a 10 minute oil change?

Are you signed up for paperless billing with your phone, utilities, car, etc.?

In working for a local utility, sustainability has not only been pushed to “maintain an ecological balance” but also to keep utility rates down for our customers. Utilities, like Motel 6, like to keep the light on for you. Lights go out and need to be replaced. Bulbs should not go to the dump for various reasons but mainly because of the mercury in them. Most bulbs are made up of glass, mercury and metal. My utility, crushes these bulbs onsite, then ships them off with a waste contractor who recycles them by sorting the glass, metal and mercury then finding ways to reuse all of these products.

Do you work with a company that requires travel or use some sort of transportation to get to work, that vehicle probably gets a routine oil change. Oil is often recycled through a filtering and refining process which then allows the same oil to be reused. This process can happen an infinite number of times.  

Paperless billing, is a process where companies are reducing their mail costs while being sustainable. If you were to just take the employees at the utility I work for who have signed up for paperless billing, this initiative has saved over a ton of paper per year. Just think of how much paper would be saved if 5% of the total service area moved to paperless billing.       

Years ago I heard on the radio that millennials were more interested in getting information fast and at their fingertips than protecting their identity.  I, on the other hand, really want both. One Donation helps me with this by providing a secure app that I can send a donation to the charity of my choice.  Soon, One Donation is about to add a platform for payroll deduction for companies to donate to their own selected charities.  This process will incorporate a paperless signup (wow sustainable) for companies and utilize HIPPA compliant document exchange to keep employee’s information protected.    

One World – One Company – One Donation

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Payroll Donations – How It Works!

There is a lot of buzz around One Donation and our payroll donation platform. That gets our team really excited but has also led to a lot of questions. For that reason, we created the payroll process flow below in order to answer some of the questions we get asked.

To begin, this process can be initiated in multiple ways:

  • Employers – If you are an employer that is interested in offering payroll donations to your employees, please fill out the form HERE. Once you submit the form, we will follow up with you shortly to discuss the best method for you to begin offering payroll donations. There is no cost to you the employer. One Donation charges a simple $0.50 flat fee per transaction and the remaining balance of the donation gets distributed directly to the non-profit. One Donation can provide secure online forms with any number of designated non-profits you choose or you can choose to leave the decision up to your employees and they can donate to the charity of their choice.
  • Non-Profits – Do you have a database of donors? Payroll donations are a great tool for engaging your subscribers and creating a consistent volume of donations to help your non-profit focus on your mission instead of your funding. If you are a non-profit, please fill out the form HERE and we will follow up with you to discuss the next steps. One Donation will provide a link to an online secure form with your non-profit details pre-filled.

Once the Donor/Employee is contacted, they complete the secure online form which gets submitted to One Donation. One Donation then sends a confirmation email to the donor/employee and a second email with the donation record is sent to the employer. At this point we also follow up with human resources or the accounting department at the employer’s office as needed.

Just like any other payroll deduction, the employer adds the donation as a new line item and on each pay cycle, One Donation receives an EFT and a ledger of donations. One Donation then merges and verifies all records for accuracy and then distributes funds to the appropriate non-profit.

One added benefit of payroll donations comes during tax season. Because the donations are deducted directly from the employee’s payroll check, all donations are recorded directly on their W2.

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One Donation – More Than Just A Phone Application

The One Donation platform has a four-pronged approach to Giving Made Easy.

  1. Phone Application – From our early days we have maintained our original giving made easy phone application. The application gives users the ability to search over 1.5M non-profits, make donations and then track all donations for tax purposes. In the next several months we will update the current application with major design improvements and to reflect our name change to One Donation.
  2. Ecommerce – Quickly after launching the initial phone application, the need for a web based ecommerce solution was obvious. One Donation took the process contained within the phone application and applied that to the web. Now any non-profit can directly link to their online profile and send potential donors to the One Donation website to process donations.
  3. Live Events – With One Donation Live Events, non-profits can manage every facet of their events in one place. They can manage event registration and setup live and/or silent auction items in the platform. Once a payment method is created, the information is saved making all transactions hassle free.
  4. Payroll Donations – By connecting secure online forms with the One Donation platform, payroll donations are an exciting new offering. The consistency of payroll donations offers tremendous stability for non-profits. For employers, payroll donations are a great employee retention tool and employees love the opportunity to give to the non-profit of their choice. All around, payroll donations represent a huge opportunity and a win/win/win for everyone involved.
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Overhead – The 5,000 lb. Elephant In The Room

 

Did you know that the average overhead for a non-profit is 36.9%?

Overhead is popular topic surrounding non-profit efficiency. While there are arguments on both sides of the topic, we will save that debate for another time.

There are a few non-profits that operate in similar circles as One Donation. Without mentioning names, one non-profit we have all heard of relies heavily on payroll donations. This organization boasts a 19% overhead rate; which is really good when compared to the industry average of 36.9%.

But what about One Donation?

At One Donation, because of the structure of our foundation, we are held to an even higher standard than the average non-profit. Of all the funds that pass through the One Donation foundation, we guarantee to send 85% onto their intended non-profit. That means we must maintain less than 15% overhead. While 15% overhead is the acceptable target, we are striving to be in the single digits.

Let’s look at two examples:

Example 1: If someone sets up a recurring payroll donation for $5, One Donation charges our flat fee of $0.50 per transaction. That means we have only 10% going to overhead and 90% going directly to the cause the donor/employee supports.

Example 2: If someone sets up a recurring payroll donation for $10, One Donation charges our flat fee of $0.50 per transaction. That means we have only 5% going to overhead and 95% going directly to the cause the donor/employee supports.

We are able to limit our overhead by utilizing technology. With the use of the proper technology, One Donation does not need a large number of employees or offices located in every major city across the country. We are able to stay lean and ensure that we pass as much from every single donation as possible onto the causes that our donors support.

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Disasters and Jigsaw Puzzles?

Have you ever helped a child complete a jigsaw puzzle?  

After your child’s favorite puzzle is chosen, the pieces are dumped out of a box on the floor, and little fingers sift through the pile of pieces finding the “easy” ones. To a five year old the “easy” pieces are the ones with one straight edge and if you are real lucky you will quickly find four pieces with two straight edges.   

With these straight pieces, the puzzle starts to take shape when all four sides are connected and complete. Next, the picture starts to come to life as the middle pieces complete the image on the box by working from the edges to fill in the center.  

As with most of the puzzles in my 5 year olds collection, as we get closer to finishing the puzzle sometimes we are a few pieces short. This is very disappointing and we are left with two options. Either give up and put the puzzle away or look everywhere for the missing pieces to make the puzzle whole.

I see a community, after a natural disaster, as similar to a five year old’s jigsaw puzzle – Do you see it?

Whether it is flood waters, tornado type winds or rushing wildfires, natural disasters can leave communities in pieces with its members trying to piece their lives back together. Like the sides of a puzzle, the community leaders, relief organizations and volunteers start to organize and determine how to help clean-up, collect and distribute basic necessities to help rebuild the community. At this point there are a lot of outsiders, the edges of the puzzle, making decisions trying to bring the community together again. The new community (volunteers, citizens impacted and relief workers) comes together to create a community – post disaster.  

Just like when my son finds a missing puzzle piece under the sofa, broken because the dog used it as a chew toy, a little glue and tape can repair the puzzle piece stronger and slightly different but it still fits. The new community, similar to the completed puzzle, will never be the same but will become stronger, have new friends and will share stories of their experience.

Please share the Natural Disaster Relief Organizations you like to support on the One Donation Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts. Be sure to include hyperlinks to all of the sites listed

If you have any comments about the blog or questions for the One Donation team please send a message to founders(at)onedonation.org.

Looking for a list of nonprofits seeking your help in 2017?

Use the link below, answer a short survey and our team will send you 3 nonprofits tailored to your responses.

http://bit.ly/2isnhvV

We can help you make it easy for your company and your employees achieve your community support goals. Click here to request more information. 

http://bit.ly/2iohxkg           

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Is it Ever Late to make a New Year’s Resolution?

It seems like just yesterday it was 2016 – and here I am looking at my calendar and it is already the 22nd of January! Even though January is cruising by, it is never late to evaluate and make resolutions for the year to come and to share your resolutions with coworkers, friends and family.  

Will it be to get more sleep (overrated unless you have kids), lose weight (the summer is around the corner), work harder (maybe get that promotion) or is it to get out of debt (Freedom Baby – just ask Dave Ramsey)?

Will you be successful in the resolution you choose? Or will you not?

Did you decide on a resolution, if so how did you do it?  Did you ask Siri? Please tell us your resolution on either Facebook or Twitter.  

Personally, I am usually unable to keep at least one of my resolutions for the entire year, much less until Tax Day.  

For the first time in 37 years, I was able to keep my 2016 New Year’s Resolution. I always wanted to complete a half marathon. If you know me, you would probably laugh and say ‘man you cannot run to the mailbox much less half a marathon.’  Well I talked to my personal trainer, her name is Siri, and we found a training plan on google and I committed to training for 10 weeks. On December 17, I finished the Rockin’ Santa Half Marathon in Knoxville, TN in a time of 2 hours 5 minutes and 18 seconds.  (My goal on the next one is to break the 2 hour mark, I will let you know how that goes).

Having completed one successful resolution, I can only move forward in 2017 and not look back.

My 2017 New Year’s resolution is to increase, from last year, the the number of donations made to charities. I plan to research and find charitable organizations that are making a difference in their communities. I have my 2016 baseline saved in the history section of the Pass the Plate app (brought to you by One Donation), on my mobile device. On January 1, 2017 I made my first donation to the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra, which was immediately added to my 2017 donation history in the app. I also added them to my list of favorite charities so future donations to them will be even easier.

Just like my 10 week training plan for the half marathon, I will continue to track my progress through the Pass the Plate app. In addition to tracking and keeping a convenient record of my donations made through the app,  I can also add any donations I might make outside of the app.   

As a wise man once told me ‘you can change the world one donation at a time.’  I hope you too will make and be successful keeping, an enjoyable resolution in 2017.

If you have any comments about the blog or questions for the One Donation team please send a message to founders(at)onedonation.org.

Do you want assistance in selecting a nonprofit to donate to in 2017?

Use the link below and answer a short survey.  Based on your answers, our team will send you 3 nonprofits that may fit with what you are looking for.

http://bit.ly/2isnhvV

Would you like for your company to take payroll deductions for your favorite nonprofit?  Please answer a short survey to determine if our platform is available at your company.

http://bit.ly/2iohxkg    

     

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Goodbye 2016. Hello 2017!

Over the past few weeks I have done a lot of reflection on this past year. As a One Donation Co-Founder and Project Manager, I have reflected on items both personal and related to One Donation. Many important lessons have been learned over the past year but I want to take a moment to highlight a few of the bigger accomplishments of 2016.

These accomplishments include::

– Added additional advisors to our team:
Joe Brittain – 19 years of experience consulting and implementing Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS).
Peter Marsh – founding Member of Flywheel Co-working and New Ventures Club, a membership based investment organization in North Carolina.
Robert Schmidt – 38 years of experience in business development and operating companies including First Pay TV service in former USSR, First U.S. Teleport, and Co-Founder of C-SPAN.
James Treakle – a Vietnam Veteran, General Practice attorney and a successful real estate investor.
John Usedom – 25 years developing and growing B2B organizations and teams and designing customer loyalty systems .

– Began the migration from an app to a platform that can accept donations via payroll deduction.
– Initiated name change from Pass the Plate to One Donation.

Reflecting on the previous year is a great exercise, and energized us for setting goals for the next year. In 2017 we have set our eyes on some big goals and look forward to sharing our progress with you in the weeks and months to come.

In the year to come:

– We will be releasing the newly updated and rebranded One Donation app in both iTunes and Google Play store in Q1.
– We will begin testing our payroll deduction donation system with a variety of small businesses in Q1.
– We are building a custom integration into a major payroll provider and will offer the integration to the provider as an added benefit for their thousands of businesses.

I hope you will follow One Donation over the next few months to watch our progress. We will continue to provide you with updates and other exciting announcements via our website and social media accounts.

Website: http://OneDonation.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1Donation/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/One_Donation

Have questions, please email our founders at founders(at)onedonation.org

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