Bank card kiosks ease church giving
FRESNO, Calif. — Long ago, people gave God parts of their livelihood — goats, sheep, wheat and barley. Much later, they began plopping money into collection plates.
Now, some churchgoers are swiping their bank cards at machines that look a bit like ATMs.
“It’s easier,” says John Muscianes, who attends New Covenant Community Church in Fresno, Calif. “I don’t have to write a check. It’s convenient.”
Places of worship have provided more options for tithing and offerings in the past decade. (A tithe is generally the 10th of one’s income that is donated to a religious organization in weekly or monthly installments.)
Some install links on their websites for worshippers to give online. Some provide options for automatic deductions from checking accounts. Now comes a new twist: Machines rolling into churches — called giving kiosk units.
SecureGive, a company in Augusta, Ga., has been selling them since 2007, but sales have taken off only in the past year. Now about 325 churches nationwide use them.
“A lot of people just don’t carry checkbooks,” says Stuart Baker, director of sales and marketing for SecureGive. “We’re moving into a cashless society. From a practical standpoint, it allows people to do what they already want to do — give.”
New Covenant Community Church has provided online giving through its website for a number of years. It installed a giving kiosk unit in the sanctuary foyer in late November.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Jan van Oosten, says so many people use debit cards these days that “the kiosk is the way to go.”
New Covenant’s unit is a sleek silver pedestal topped with a computer screen, numeric keypad and magnetic strip reader. Prompted by on-screen instructions, congregants swipe their bank cards and punch in some numbers. After they’re done, a receipt spits out.
So far, New Covenant’s giving kiosk is averaging about a dozen users on Sundays.
