Nonprofit Merchant Services Built for Donation-Based Revenue

We provide charity merchant accounts for registered charities, private and community foundations, and other 501(c)(3) organizations. The charity merchant services attached — hosted giving forms, recurring gifts, phone and event collections, ACH for major gifts — cover the full donation lifecycle. Underwriting starts from how charities actually collect funds:

Donation-based underwriting is what makes the difference. We review your 501(c)(3) determination letter, organizational documents, and donation history in context, so a small recurring gift and a large one-time major gift processed in the same week read as normal giving activity rather than suspicious volume.

That is why charitable organizations declined by a traditional processor often turn to a high-risk specialist rather than give up on card payments.

Because charities sit alongside the other high-risk processing industries we serve every day, the team reviewing your file already understands variable gift amounts, campaign seasonality, and donation chargebacks.

Churches and ministries follow the same application and underwriting path as registered charities. Your congregation can give tithes, offerings, and ministry donations by card or ACH — online, by phone, or in person at services and ministry events — and recurring billing makes weekly or monthly giving automatic.

To apply, provide your organizational documents and, where applicable, your 501(c)(3) determination letter — whether you are a single congregation, a multi-campus church, or a ministry with national reach.

Yes. Every card gift carries interchange — the fee set by the card networks — plus the processor's charges, and no provider can remove interchange entirely. The networks do publish reduced interchange categories for eligible registered charities, and many organizations offset cost by inviting donors to cover the fee at checkout, which most donors accept.

Offers of “free” processing are either donor-covered fees under another name or an aggregator absorbing cost in exchange for less account stability. For a fuller breakdown of rates and how to lower them, read our guide to credit card processing fees for nonprofits.

Traditional processors decline nonprofits more often than most applicants expect, and the reasons are structural — not a judgment of your organization:

A standard retail underwriting model reads that profile as unstable. A high-risk specialist underwrites it as what it is — normal nonprofit revenue, where variable volumes, multiple giving channels, and campaign seasonality are expected, not penalized.