Venmo, owned by PayPal, is a mobile digital wallet that offers your donors an easy way to give and register. By enabling the ability to pay by Venmo directly in your form, donors can complete their purchase in just a few clicks. Giving donors a familiar way to pay can lessen abandoned carts and increase funds for your organization.

Because Venmo is owned by PayPal, PayPal will also appear as a payment option whenever Venmo is enabled, giving your donors the freedom to pay how they wish to.

Please note: The Venmo button will not appear for donation forms on iOS devices because of a technical issue on PayPal’s side. The Venmo button will still appear on non-iOS devices and for peer-to-peer and event registrations on iOS devices.

On which tools is Venmo supported?

Venmo is available for all organizations based in the US. It’s important to note that Venmo does not support recurring giving, so if a donor elects to make a recurring donation Venmo won't appear as an option.

• Venmo is best supported during checkout for: 
  • Donation forms
  • Standard events
  • Peer-to-peer registrations
  • Peer-to-peer donations
• Venmo is not currently available for:
  • Auction events
  • Givi
  • Recurring Donations

Creating Your PayPal Account: 

The ability to pay with Venmo is a service offered by PayPal. To use this service, you must have a merchant/business account with PayPal. We recommend you set up your PayPal account before adding PayPal/Venmo to your organization in Qgiv. Once you add PayPal to your organization, Venmo will be available during checkout.

PayPal/Venmo Processing Fees:

Transaction fees are your normal PayPal rates, plus a Qgiv transaction fee of 1.95% per transaction (2.95% for peer-to-peer transactions) for PayPal and Venmo transactions. There are no added cents-per-transaction fees. Your PayPal transaction fees will continue to be handled outside of our system by PayPal. 

When you're looking at your reports in Qgiv, you'll see “PayPal via Venmo” as the payment type in the transaction details, but all statements, accounting, settlement questions, etc. would go through PayPal since they're still processing the transactions—we just place it on your form as a payment option! To learn more about packages pricing and fees, check out this article.

Contents:

• Adding Venmo to Your Organization
• Customizing the Authenticated Message in Form Builder
• What Donors See
• Refunds
• Reporting

 

Adding Venmo to Your Organization

Please note: You’ll need to contact the Customer Experience Team to let them know you’d like to add PayPal/Venmo to your account. Once the Customer Experience Team is notified, the Manage PayPal link will become visible.

On your organization-level dashboard, look for the Manage PayPal link in the Settings menu.

On the Mange PayPal screen, click Enable PayPal.

You’ll be prompted to log in with your PayPal credentials.  

If you need to set up a new PayPal account, you can create one from this screen. 

 

When you've successfully connected, you'll see this screen: 

Once you’ve authorized Qgiv to use your PayPal account, you will see your Merchant ID, as well as verification that your email is confirmed, payments are receivable, and permissions have been granted. 

If you see a "No" for any of the three verifications:

• Has Confirmed Email: Locate the email sent to you by PayPal and confirm your email address.
• Are Payments Receivable: Contact PayPal support for more information.  
• Have Permissions Granted: Re-do permissions by pressing the button located at the top of the screen. 

And that’s it! PayPal and Venmo will now be available to donors on your public-facing forms. If you’d like to view what donors will see when they visit your form, you can skip ahead to this section.

But first, we recommend a small customization to your form’s payment details page. 

Customizing the Authenticated Message in Form Builder 

By default, donors will see the following message after pressing the PayPal or Venmo button. 

To edit this message, navigate to the Payment Details step in Form Builder.  

Click the gear icon in the top right corner of the widget to edit. 

Scroll down to “Payment Method: PayPal.” From here, you can change the Default Message that appears under the tab.

Please note: Venmo does not support recurring gifts, so if a recurring donor selects the recurring gift option, they will only see the PayPal button during checkout. You may want to include that information in the Default Message for the tab.

 

What Donors See

When a donation or registration is made, PayPal and Venmo will appear as payment options on your form during checkout. Please note that the Venmo payment option only appears under these specific conditions: 

1. Venmo is only visible when a donor is making a one-time donation or registration. Venmo won’t appear as an option for recurring donations. 
2. In order to see the Venmo button on a mobile device, donors must have the Venmo app installed. Plus, Apple users must use Safari as their browser and Android users must use Chrome as their browser.
3. Venmo is only available for donors located in the U.S. for U.S.-based nonprofits.

Please note: Venmo is not currently available for auction events or in the Givi app. See the donor experience when using PayPal, read the PayPal as a Payment Option article.

 

Donation Form Transaction

 

Desktop Devices

When a donor clicks Venmo Donate on a desktop device, a QR code will appear for the donor to scan with the Venmo app on a mobile device.

 

Mobile Devices

If the donor is on a mobile device, they’ll select Venmo as a payment option and the Venmo app will launch on their phone. To complete the transaction they’ll tap Continue in the Venmo app and will be routed back to the donation form.

 

Peer-to-Peer Transactions

Registering for a Peer-to-Peer Event

After a participant has selected a package and filled out any details required by your organization, they’ll reach the Billing Details step. When participants select Venmo, they’ll follow the steps above to authenticate and complete their transaction.

 

Making a Peer-to-Peer Donation

To make a peer-to-peer donation by Venmo, donors will select their gift amount and fill out any fields required by your organization. Under the Billing Information, they must select PayPal for Venmo to appear. Upon clicking Venmo, they’ll follow the steps above to authenticate and complete their gift.  

 

Purchasing from the Store

Once the participant has added an item to their cart, they’ll navigate to checkout and select “PayPal.” Once PayPal is selected, the option to pay using Venmo will appear. They’ll follow the steps above to authenticate their account and complete their transaction. 

 

Refunds

Venmo refunds are handled exclusively through your PayPal dashboard. Any changes made in the Refund Options area of Qgiv are for reporting purposes only and will not cause any transfer of funds with PayPal. 

 

Reporting

In Batches and Settlements, Venmo transactions will show up in the Unfunded column as PayPal transactions. Remember, all PayPal transactions are still handled through your PayPal account.

However, when viewing transactions, you'll notice under Transaction Details that Venmo transactions display as PayPal via Venmo. To learn more about transactions and reports, check out this article.

 

If you're using the Express Donate feature, check out this article to learn more about what donor information you'll receive.