Overview
Zeffy is a fundraising platform for nonprofit organizations that promises completely free fundraising. They cover the fees associated with processing your transactions by prompting your donors to add an additional tip directly to Zeffy.
“Fee Free” Transactions
Zeffy covers transaction fees for organizations on the platform through a controversial practice of asking the donor to add an additional amount to their transaction that goes directly to Zeffy. Your organization does not control this amount, or how the donor is prompted for an additional tip.
The requested tip that Zeffy asks for is based on the donation amount. For donations over $25, the default percentage is 15% and donors can choose to increase their tip amount if they wish. For donations $25 and under, the tipping percentage starts at either 17% or $5.Â
This practice is problematic because donors may miss the addition of the “tip” to their total. This can lead to donors paying significantly more per donation, and leave them feeling mislead. In order for a donor to opt out of the tip, they need to select the tip dropdown, then choose other and enter a tip amount of 0.
This is an example of the unclear tipping interface found on Zeffy donation forms:
Transparent Transactions with NonprofitsHQ
With NonprofitsHQ, your donors know exactly what they are paying for each donation, event ticket, raffle ticket or any other transaction processed on the platform.
For donations, donors can optionally cover the associated transaction fees. In the image to the right, you see a NonprofitsHQ donation checkout page for a $50 donation. The associated transaction fees are $2.25 with us, but for the same donation on Zeffy your donors are prompted for tips starting at $8.50
For tickets, associated fees are paid by the ticket purchaser and typically amount to just a few dollars per ticket. This is common practice in digital ticketing and ensures that 100% of the ticket price goes to your organization.
Pro Tip: Organizations on NonprofitsHQ can optionally pass the transaction fees to the donor. This saves the donor money by only charging them what’s necessary to process the transaction, and still allows the organization to receive 100% of the donation.
Feature Comparison
Both Zeffy and NonprofitsHQ have a comprehensive set of features to help organizations manage their fundraising. But NonprofitsHQ has additional features that are included in all subscriptions (even the free tier!) to help organizations stay organized and efficient in areas beyond just fundraising.
| Feature | NonprofitsHQ | Zeffy |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free for organizations generating less than $100k in annual revenue. $2988/yr for larger organizations. | No platform fee, no monthly cost. |
| Pricing: Transactions | 3.9% + $0.30 per transaction regardless of of type (donations, tickets, etc). 1%, with a $10 cap for ACH transactions (sponsorship packages) | No transaction fees to organizations, additional donor tip to cover fees as high as 25% per donation. |
| Customizable Forms | Unlimited forms that feed directly into the powerful CRM. | Some customization options, unlimited forms. |
| Event Ticketing | Sell event tickets with unlimited tiers, pricing, and advanced features like discount codes, sell dates and more. | Event ticketing support. |
| Auctions & Raffles | Unlimited auctions and raffles with optional in person self-serve kiosks for larger events. Additional ID validation services protects your auctions and raffles from abuse. | Unlimited auctions and raffles. |
| Donor Management | A robust CRM that lets you manage volunteers, staff, donors and more. | Some donor management functionality. |
| Volunteer Management | Powerful volunteer management including onboarding, scheduling and communication. | X |
| Staff Management | Staff management including communication tools, integrated background checks, credential review and approval and more. | X |
| AI Assistant | Tobi AI helps organizations on the NonprofitsHQ platform do everything from writing emails, thanking donors, to writing copy for their events and raffles! | X |
| Crowdfunding | Unlimited campaigns and donors with advanced features like start/end, target goals, and advanced reporting. | Some support for crowdfunding. |
| Grant Writing (coming soon) | Grants That Come To You, a powerful AI assisted tool that constantly searches for grant opportunities for your organization. When one is found that meets your desired threshold, a toolkit that includes a proposal and letter of interest are automatically created for you! | X |
| Knowledge Base | A single location with an easy to use editor to store organization policies, procedures and other important documents. Easily share them with others in your organization, or with the public through secure link and embed codes. | X |
| QR Codes | Generate and track unlimited QR codes from the NonprofitsHQ dashboard. Works with anything in your NonprofitsHQ account (forms, campaigns, events, raffles, auctions) or any custom URL, text, phone number or email. | Share QR codes to your forms. |
| QuickBooks Integration | Automatically sync your donation, tickets and any other transaction to QuickBooks by simply connecting your account. No need for additional setup or to sign up for other services. | Sync your data to QuickBook through Zappier after creating and configuring an account on a separate service. May incur additional costs depending on your usage. |
Summary
While there are many tools out there to help nonprofit organizations manage their fundraising, NonprofitsHQ brings all of the tools you need to manage more than just fundraising into one place – at an affordable price.
Free Tier: Organizations that generate less than $100k in annual revenue can take advantage of the entire NonprofitsHQ platform at no cost. Don’t just maximize fundraising, maximize your entire organization and grow with NonprofitsHQ.
We’d be happy to show you around the NonprofitsHQ platform. Request a demo by completing this quick form and we’ll be in touch!
