Credit card processing at Churches has emerged as a great way for churches to generate funds. Churches are following the leads of businesses who almost without exception accept credit cards as an efficient way to increase sales. Although technically a church may be a non-profit organization, just like a business, the church still has a specific purpose. It needs to generate funds to accomplish that purpose. Any method that increases the church’s ability to generate funds should be used and church credit card processing does just that.

In today’s society when it’s normal for people to have multiple credit and debit cards in their wallets, many tend to carry less cash. If during the time of tithes and offerings, people don’t have cash in their wallets, the church won’t get any funds. To battle this and make it easier for members to donate funds, church credit card processing has increased.

Processing credit cards at church can help churches increase donations in multiple ways. To start off, the church can give its members the opportunity to make their tithing offering through the use of their credit cards. That makes it convenient for those members who don’t carry much cash and frequently find themselves low on cash when the tithing plate comes around. It also benefits the church because the more contributions and donations received through church credit card processing, the better the church is able to budget. It knows in advance how much it has coming in each week, month, or year.

Church credit card processing sometimes does not work exactly as credit card processing in stores but, it still requires something similar to a merchant account. Instead of actually swiping your card physically through a terminal, what generally happens is that you’ll fill out a form at church or online providing all of your credit card billing details, the amount you want to donate to the church, and the frequency of the donations. This is called “Automatic Tithing”. Some like to donate a larger sum annually, while others may prefer to donate a smaller amount each week.

The church credit card processing system will now take the member information and put it into an automated system. Now at the specified time interval, your credit or debit card will be billed automatically and the funds will be disbursed immediately to the church’s bank account. Processing credit cards at church has made it really convenient and easy for both the church and the church member when it comes to paying tithing.It also makes it very easy to do church fundraising by accepting credit card gifts and donations at the fundraiser.

The next logical advancement in church credit card processing is to be able to give via the church’s website. You would go to the church’s website and click on a link to a webpage where you could provide your credit card billing information and your tithing would be processed immediately.

This article was written by Todd Nelson, Marketing Director for Capital Merchant Solutions, Inc (HolyProcessing.com). CMS has been in the merchant account business for nearly 10 years, and offers free merchant accounts to both online and retail businesses. CMS also offers special programs for Churches and their members. One of these unique programs is called “Automatic Tithing”, which allows Churches to allow their members to automatically donate using their credit card or debit card. This article may be republished as long as absolutely no changes are made, and the resource box is included. Copyright 2007 – Capital merchant Solutions, Inc. – All rights reserved.

- Todd Nelson

In 1988, tax-deductible donations to US charities surpassed $100 billion for the first time in US history and church fundraising was a major percentage of that number. To put it in perspective, $100 billion is more than the profit revenue of all the Fortune 500 companies combined. And if charitable contributions were used as a sales figure, charitable organizations would rank #2 in the Fortune 500 behind only General Motors and almost $20 billion ahead of Exxon Mobil. It’s no exaggeration to say church fundraising is big business.

The race for charitable donations has reached new heights in recent years, particularly in church fundraising. To offset reductions in federal funding during the 1980s and to maximize their share of philanthropic giving, the estimated 800,000 organizations that are categorized by the IRS as charities are increasingly hiring fundraising practitioners and challenging them to raise increasingly higher totals of gift profit.

Although no dependable statistics are available, it can be estimated that tens of thousands of women and men today carry out fundraising duties as paid employees involved in church fundraising as well as activities for other non-profit organizations. One meter of this growth is that membership in the National Society of Fund Raising Executives has risen from fewer than 2,000 to more than than 10,000 in only 10 years.

The practitioners, whether they are involved in church fundraising or raising donations for another organization, conduct prospect searches to identify potential donors, accept credit card payments from contributors, plan special events to cultivate donors, solicit gifts by direct mail, proposals, phonathons, and face-to-face meetings; and write and edit publications to report fundraising results and to recognize donors.

To help them fulfill these tasks, practitioners rely on church fundraising principles that have changed through anecdotal material and studies that have mostly been administrative in function. Collectively, these principles form a dominant perspective of the church fundraising purpose that focuses on how to generate money without questioning the rationale for the function of its effect on recipient organizations and society.

Although varying opinions may be offered in response, church fundraising research has made little progress in answering these questions. Without a base grounded in the literature of academic disciplines, church fundraising usually has been dismissed by educators as a subject worthy of scholarly research.

Part-time practitioner/scholars generally have provided research on church fundraising that has been rare. Even though there has been a large increase of scholarly activity in the domain of philanthropy, church fundraising as an organizational function has not been targeted as one of the agreed upon problems that define that domain of study. This lack of scholarly passion in church fundraising is illustrated by the fact that only 3% of research projects on philanthropy and nonprofit organizations over the last 5 years have focused on church fundraising, but interest in this area continues to increase.

This article was written by Todd Nelson, Marketing Director for Capital Merchant Solutions, Inc (HolyProcessing.com). CMS has been in the merchant account business for nearly 10 years, and offers free merchant accounts to both online and retail businesses. CMS also offers special programs for Churches and their members. One of these unique programs is called “Automatic Tithing“, which allows Churches to allow their members to automatically donate using their credit card or debit card. This article may be republished as long as absolutely no changes are made, and the resource box is included. Copyright 2007 – Capital merchant Solutions, Inc. – All rights reserved.

- Todd Nelson

Have you ever take the time to ask what is the true motivation of the Agent that you select to sell your home?

When it comes time to select a real estate agent to sell your home, you probably have 3 choices when it comes to the type of real estate company you select based upon the Fee Structure that they employee and the resulting motivation that this may or may not cause the agent to have. These 3 approaches are a “full fee” structure, a “discounter fee” structure and a blend called a “flexible fee” structure.

The distinction between the different approaches can be drawn in two main areas. 1.) Who Finds the Buyer & 2.) How the Deal Comes Together

A “discounter fee” structure agent goes into the transaction with a fee that is reduced for the amount charged by the full fee agent. They are doing this because they are planning on following a business model that guts the services that are going to be performed during the course of the transaction. In the end, this approach also will pay out more money to the party that is trying to negotiate against you, the buyers agent. This approach may be employed by agents that are looking to eventually “Double End” the transaction because there is more money available to the Buyers Agent as compared to the Sellers Agent. To me, this sounds like a conflict of interest, but that may just be me.

A “full fee” structure agent structures the commission charges that no matter how the deal comes together and no matter who happens to find the resulting buyer. In a dual agency setup the following may apply that, there is little motivation for a “Full Fee” agent to market the property out to the buyer agent community because the Full Fee Agent may be looking to represent both you, the Seller & the Buyer. If this is the case then the Agent is going to focus there efforts on trying to Attract Buyers Directly to themselves, relying on the Yard Sign, Open Houses & their own limited websites.

A flexible fee – choose your own commission structure agent will charge a predetermined, yet different amount dependent upon the way inwhich the sale comes together. If the listing agent is able to attract the buyer directly then they get a minimal increase in the overall compensation, sometimes ranging up to 1% in addition to the amount being charged for listing the property. This is a far cry from the amount charged by the Full Fee agent that double ends the property and thus doubles the commission. This is also a lower amount than the Discounter charges for double ending the property from the base 1% commission to a 300% increase for working with the buyer and seller.

With any of these services you want to make sure that only the fee is flexible & not the level of service. By doing this you can be assured that you as the home owner & seller are getting the best value for your dollars. Keep in mind that all of this is controlled and regulated by your own areas laws on agency and whether or not an agent can truly represent both parties to a transaction under a dual or designated representation agreement. Check to see what applies in your particular area.

Bottom Line, As with anything, if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. Make sure that you select an agent and a structure when selling your home in Northern Virginia that provides you with the level of comfort that the agent is truly motivated to get your home sold and that you will be getting value for your commission dollars.

Robert Earl – Founder of The Earl of Real Estate Team is a Real Estate Entrepreneur & Real Estate Coach based in the Northern Virginia. The Earl’s Site features Chantilly Condos for Sale – Chantilly Condo Communities

- Robert Earl The Earl of Real Estate

All who have spoken to a hiring manager has heard the complaint that good people are just too hard to find. The secret is that the reason for this isn’t that there aren’t any good people. There are plenty of highly skilled and qualified employees in the workforce. They just don’t go on the market – they’re just too darned happy where they are. A big part of the reason for this is that they didn’t necessarily start out as highly skilled and qualified, but were brought to that level through management coaching and competent business.

Sure, many CEO’s have a Harvard MBA, but well below the CEO level, the fact is that a large percentage of management started out at the bottom. There’s not much reality to the old quip “Why back in my day, you started at the bottom – and by God, you stayed there!” In fact, everyone knows that competent training management (often called “on the job training”) is one of the chief ways companies have of increasing the worth of their in-house talent. And this worth doesn’t just leave the company.

When employees see that a company invests in them, through conferences, seminars, and other forms of training management, they see that they are working for a company that cares about them. This is one of the main reasons that they don’t go on the market, looking for another company that probably won’t treat them as well.

Another dirty secret is that training management works well for companies whose employees don’t know exactly what they’re worth. Unlike employees holding a Harvard MBA, those with training management do not have a piece of paper that suddenly makes them too expensive to hire. At the same time, though, they are often just as motivated, perhaps even more so, after taking on the paid job training than someone who has just slugged through academia. This is one of the many reasons companies are eager for training management.

Just as important to a company as training management is another function: change management. Would that the market never moved, that once we designed a product, we could keep selling it forever! However pleasant that thought might be, the reality is that change is a constant in this world, and even products as venerable as Coca-Cola get redesigned from time to time – to say nothing of the blitz ad campaigns! A company must be able to keep its workforce fresh and filled with vitality through continuous management.

Diplomas last forever, but changes occur continuously in the world of business. But even Harvard sees change occur all around it and must adapt. Change management helps your company stay current in an ever-changing world. Such management helps your business in the lead in the marketplace and help you develop employees to be the best they can be.

Hiring managers tend to say that good people are very hard to find. That is because there aren’t any good people available. The highly skilled and qualified employees are very happy where they are, and don’t go to market. The reason is that they did not start that way but were elevated to that position through competent business and management coaching. Thus, employees prefer to remain in such an organization that invests in them through seminars, conferences and other forms of training management. Another function of a company is change management, through which the workforce is kept very new. Thus companies stay on top and make their employees strong.

- George Purdy