Venmo: Pros and Cons for Churches and Nonprofits

Source: Horizons Stewardship

Venmo was founded in 2009 by two college roommates who wanted to create a simple and convenient way to exchange money. The result is the Venmo mobile app that allows users to easily send and receive payments from their smartphones. Venmo is a convenient tool for individuals and businesses, but there are both pros and cons for church and nonprofit donations.

Quick Facts

• 78 million people use Venmo

• 83% of users are between the ages 18 to 34

• 61% of users are male, 39% are female

• The average US transaction is between $65-75

(Source: The Business of Apps)

Advantages of Venmo

✅ Convenience

It is an easy ask. Venmo allows users to send money quickly and easily, making it more convenient to give.

✅ Popular with Younger Users

Thirty-one percent of US adults used Venmo in 2022. Eighty-three percent were young adults from 18 to 34 years old.

✅ Competitive Transaction Fees

Transaction fees of 1.9% + $0.10 per donation received.

Disadvantages of Venmo

 ❌ No Recurring Giving Option

The average recurring donor will give 42% more in one year than those who give one-time gifts. Currently, Venmo does not allow for recurring donations.

❌ Lacks Third-Party Integration

Venmo does not integrate with Church Management Software (ChMS) or other donation platforms. With a charity profile on Venmo, you'll need to manually enter data into your donation platform, which involves labor and invites human errors. Venmo does provide the names and email addresses of donors.

Summary

Venmo is popular, easy to use, and competitively priced but lacks ChMS and donation platform integration and most significantly offers no recurring giving option. Recurring giving should be a primary goal of any online strategy because it results in 42% higher household giving.