Can I remove or customize the default suggested percentage of voluntary contribution, tip or donation to Zeffy?

What is the voluntary contribution and how is the suggested percentage determined?

Unlike other fundraising softwares, Zeffy is the only platform that covers all processing fees and doesn’t charge a platform fee. This means you are able to receive 100% of every payment made to your organization. Our mission is and will always be to provide free fundraising technology to nonprofits, so you can put 100% of your funds towards your cause.

As voluntary contributions are our sole source of revenue, they need to cover the costs of:

Credit card fees for each payment
Maintaining the platform (performance, speed, security of payments, among others)
Salaries of our small team of 40 (working to support 80,000 active nonprofits)
Continued development of features to keep up with your growing fundraising needs
Not every donor chooses to leave a contribution. For these reasons, we need to suggest contributions that are higher than just processing fees in order to maintain our services.

How is Zeffy working to explain the contribution model to donors?

We understand that our model may not be familiar for most donors, that’s why we mention it twice on our forms. The first - when the donor is beginning to fill it out and the second - at the payment confirmation step. We’ve also added additional opportunities for donors to learn more about our model on our forms, in donor confirmation emails, in the donor dashboard and more.

As for the transparency and accessibility to adjust the contribution, we are working on various design options that we will be rolling out in the coming months. These type of changes affect both donors and nonprofits, therefore we need to do extensive testing to see the impact on donor experience along with the impact on our model.

It's important to us that donors understand and encourage our model, so changes moving forward will be focused on the donor experience.

How can we facilitate donor understanding?

Because we know that our model is newer and donors are curious by nature, we need your help to explain the voluntary contribution to them along with how Zeffy benefits your organization. Our model is about providing you with free technology, but it is also about collaboration. We would be extremely grateful if you encouraged your donors to contribute to Zeffy so that we can continue to provide our tools for free. That is why we put together this comprehensive page of resources to help you talk to your donors about Zeffy, check it out here.

We want to be able to address each concern thoroughly and we understand that each nonprofit may have a specific situation. Please feel free to reach out to our team for support.

Frequently asked questions by organizations:

Q: Can I integrate Zeffy's payment module only in a form created outside of Zeffy?

A: Currently, Zeffy isn't set up to be used as a payment processor for other platforms. We partner with Stripe to handle payments and then cover their processing fees when transactions are made through our platform meaning we don't currently support using Stripe as your payment processor on another software and then having Zeffy cover the fees.

That being said, we have a few options to have your registration forms integrated with your Zeffy form.

You could use Zeffy's form for payment purposes and then provide a link to the other form created in your thank you email, which you can customize on your form. There is a high open rate on this email, making it ideal for links you need your registrants to fill out. :) :) Here's how you can customize this: Edit the "Thank you" or confirmation email sent to donors
Alternatively, it is possible to set up a ''custom thank you page'' on any of your forms. Any buyer on Zeffy is usually redirected to Zeffy page following their transaction, but we can customize this and have them redirected to a form / link of your choice. This way, you could have your buyers complete the transaction on Zeffy and then automatically get redirected to your form post purchase. You can learn more about this (and submit a redirection request) here: Set-up UTM parameters & source tracking

Q: Can I customize the wording and amounts in the suggested contribution dropdown?

A: The wording about contributions to Zeffy on the form cannot be customized, as it has been carefully designed and extensively tested to maximize both donor understanding and platform sustainability. Through rigorous testing, we’ve found that this wording effectively communicates the contribution model while ensuring a seamless donation experience. Because Zeffy operates on a unique voluntary contribution model—allowing nonprofits to keep 100% of their funds—maintaining consistent messaging is essential.

Similarly, the contribution amount itself cannot be customized. The percentages actually fluctuate with the amount of the transaction. The amount is set by an algorithm that accounts for the amount being processed, the larger it is, the lower the suggested percentage is. It is designed to take into account the credit card and transaction fees, and also accounts for service fees to help us grow our business. It's worth noting that we do not impose any platform fees on non-profits using Zeffy. While credit card fees typically range from 2-4% per transaction, a regular donation platform may also charge up to 8% in fees to non-profits. Consequently, donors would ultimately bear similar costs. The key distinction is that with our system, donors have full visibility and control over the percentage of fees associated with their donation, whereas traditional platforms offer no such transparency.

If you'd like to provide additional context for your donors, you’re welcome to add wording elsewhere on your form to help explain how Zeffy works. We also offer suggestions on how to do this in our Help Center: How to talk to your donors about Zeffy