In 1891, Salvation Army Captain Joseph McFee placed an iron kettle at a corner on Market Street, at the Oakland Ferry Landing across from San Francisco. He had a vision of serving a Christmas meal for the destitute and poverty-stricken in the San Francisco area and need the money to do so. Captain McFee placed this pot at a spot where he knew there would be a lot of foot traffic, and that those feet may have some money to spare for those in need—namely sailors landing at the harbor and heading into town after being paid for their most recent voyage.

Those kettles continue today, raising more money each year, but in today’s so-called cashless society there are many manners by which people carry and spend their money. In addition to credit cards and checks, people are making financial transactions using the Internet to make direct online payments to merchants. But there exists an even smaller niche with potentially big rewards for nonprofits: online bill pay.

Online bill pay is such the norm for consumers today that we don’t hear much about it anymore. It’s been three years since the New York Times reported that the percentage of bills paid online was nearly equal to the percentage paid by check (May 29, 2006, Pay Bills With a Click? More Americans Are Doing It and Banks Are Loving It). Since then, online bill pay has continued to grow. Fisv Inc. reported in August 2008 that ¾ of Americans pay at least some of their bills online. As the Internet becomes more secure and as the usage of the Internet by our more experienced Americans (defined by age) increases, the percentage of bills paid online is going to grow even more. In fact, at one local high school, the Economics class now teaches students how to safely pay bills online before they teach them how to write out a check!

Why is this important for your nonprofit? Smart fund raisers like Captain McFee and you go where the money is. In this case, your donors are making financial transactions using their online bill pay service, and a donation to your organization is a financial transaction.  I believe that if you put that idea into your donors’ heads and show them generally how to do it, you will see that avenue of payment vehicle grow for your institution. Last year the caging vendor who takes care of our direct mail donations reported to us that they are seeing a steady growth in checks coming from banks in the form of online bill pay checks.

Making a donation using an online bill pay service is quite easy. The donor simply sets up your nonprofit as one of its Payees and makes a donation in exactly the same fashion as they would pay their utility, cell phone or credit card bill.

Stay ahead of the trend and score big by encouraging your donors to use online bill pay to make one-time or even regular recurring donations using their online bill pay service. They will see how easy it is to do so and you may reap great reward.