Crowdster Enables Apple Pay Mobile Donations

Crowdster, an online fundraising platform provider for nonprofit organizations, launched its Apple Pay mobile donation feature to help nonprofits capitalize on the acceleration in the number of transactions being made on mobile devices.

“Enabling mobile users with a simple, easy-to-use way to make donations fits with our strategy of providing the online fundraising platform that is the easiest to use from both a donor, as well as administrator, perspective,” Crowdster CEO Joe Ferraro said in a press release late last week.

The new capability will enable donors to make donations right from their smartphone using Apple Pay by confirming the donation amount and using their fingerprint to authorize and complete the transaction.

As Crowdster noted in the release, crowdfunding has transformed into a substantial source of capital for nonprofit organizations, which is why the company has focused on supporting peer-to-peer capabilities to help these organizations meet and exceed their fundraising goals.

Using new payment methods and technologies to enable giving is a trend seen throughout the payment landscape.

Last August, Facebook unveiled its donate button aimed at nonprofits and advertisement pages linked to those organizations.

The “Donate Now” buttons were integrated into the charities’ pages, and transactions occurred through credit cards that had been stored on the site. With the nonprofit-oriented donate button, the technology has expanded to sites that are not directly partnered with Facebook and has a distinction of being a bit “more cumbersome” for transactions to take place, which might be strategic.