Mobile online giving is important, but can we trust the Internet for online donations?
The infographic below highlights the Internet’s recent security and privacy failures and states that “75% of people already have or will have their data compromised in their lifetime.”
That’s a pretty scary statistic (however accurate it is) if you rely on the web to keep your data safe; but in the end, keeping your data safe has far more to do with you and me than it does companies and applications that store our data.
Take a closer look:
Changing your passwords — having good passwords — are some of the basic things we can do to insure that our data is safe.
I do think, however, this is a good reminder that when you are shopping for an online donation provider for your church, ministry or nonprofit organization, that is important to choose the one you trust the most, not the one that charges the least.
The question I pose — can you trust the web for online donations — doesn’t have a right or wrong answer. In fact, it’s probably the wrong question. Internet security starts with the user, ends with the app provider, and really has hardly anything to do with the Internet itself.
Do you agree?
[via Who Is Hosting This? | Women holding a card image via antoniocasas – homofotograficus.com via Compfight cc]
John says
Eric,
My suggestion is to check with other non-profit organizations. If your church or para-church ministry is partnered with Compassion International or Operation Christmas Child look at who they’re using for online donations.
I ran a campaign in 2009 for Living Water International and in 2010 I did the same for Compassion International. I contacted someone in each organization and we worked out a way to deal with donations. In the first case there was a trusted 3rd-party that we used and in the later we encouraged making direct donations.
In both cases we went with the method that they trusted. Hey, if all else fails there’s PayPal! PayPal has a specific product for registered non-profit organizations.
Cheers,
John
Eric Dye says
Awesome. Thank you, John! 😀