♡Donations and members in practice

With the prerequisites, not with the block:

1. Exemption notice (Freistellungsbescheid) or confirmation of non-profit status — the basis of every donation receipt.
2. A payment route through which the money arrives.
3. A decision about receipts: from what amount, how they are produced, who signs.
4. A project or purpose for which people donate.

Only after that, the block on the website.

The most common mistake is the order: a donation form that goes online before it has been settled who writes the receipts creates a problem in January — when everyone wants their confirmation.

Allow two to four weeks for preparation, usually because of the payment service.

It must follow the official template — deviations can cost the donor their tax deduction.

It must include, among other things:

• Name and address of the recipient and of the donor.
• Amount in figures and words.
• Date of the donation.
• Details of the exemption notice — tax office, date, tax number.
• Confirmation that the donation will be used for the tax-privileged purpose.
• Statement of whether it is a monetary donation or a donation in kind.

Up to 300 €, the simplified proof is sufficient in many cases — bank statement plus the recipient’s receipt. That saves you considerable work with small donations.

Clarify the details with your tax adviser. The templates change from time to time.

Specifically, with an amount and an effect.

What works:

• A figure people can picture. “25 € pays for a tree including a protective guard” beats “Your donation helps”.
• A clearly defined goal. “12,000 € for the new minibus” is tangible; “supporting the club’s work” is not.
• A timeframe. By when should the money come together?
• What happens when it is full — and what happens if it is not.

What does not work: appeals without an object. People donate for things, not for organisations.

And show afterwards what came of it. A post with pictures of the finished minibus is the best preparation for the next appeal.

Three levels — they answer the unspoken question “how much is usual?”.

What has proved its worth:

• Three suggestions, for example 10 / 25 / 50 €. The middle one is chosen most often.
• A free field next to them, for anyone who wants to decide differently.
• A minimum amount, so that tiny donations do not cost more in fees than they bring in.

What determines the levels: your donors, not your need. If you mostly receive regular small donations, 5 / 10 / 20 is right.

And tie the amounts to an effect where possible: “25 € — one tree” is chosen more often than “25 €”.

Yes — but only if it moves.

Visible progress measurably increases the willingness to donate: people would rather contribute to something that is moving forward than get something started.

What works against it:

• A bar at 8% for weeks. It says: this is not going to happen.
• An unrealistic goal. 50,000 € for a club with forty members.

What helps:

• Set a realistic goal — better to reach 5,000 € and start a second project.
• Report interim results. A post at the halfway point keeps the appeal alive.
• Count offline donations too, if they come in for the same purpose.

And if an appeal does not get going: end it and learn from it, instead of leaving it up for a year.

The payment service charges a fee — usually a small percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction.

What that means in practice:

• Small donations are disproportionately expensive. On a 2 € donation, the fee can be 40 cents — hence a minimum amount.
• Direct debit is usually cheaper than card.
• Bank transfer costs nothing, but is less convenient and done less often.

What you can do towards donors:

• Be transparent. A sentence saying that fees apply does no harm.
• Offer a round-up that also covers the fee.

And do the maths once: if online donations noticeably increase the number of donors, the fees are well spent.

The busiest moment in the donation year, and the most predictable:

1. Produce and send donation receipts for the year just ended. Collective receipts for regular donors save a lot of work.
2. Check addresses. A receipt sent to an old address comes back and doubles the work.
3. Reconcile with the accounts. What arrived in the account must match what you confirm.
4. December appeal — the strongest time of year for donations, for tax reasons.

What you should prepare beforehand: test the receipts in November, not in January. Otherwise a mistake in the template shows up on five hundred receipts at once.

It is personal data and partly sensitive — a donation to a particular organisation can allow conclusions about political or religious convictions.

What follows from this:

• Only collect what is necessary. A donation receipt requires name, address, amount and date — nothing more.
• Do not publish donor lists without express consent. Not in the annual report either.
• Keep access tight. Not every board member needs the donor list.
• Observe retention periods — required for tax purposes, then delete.

And the case that happens to clubs most often: a thank-you email to all donors with every address visible. That is a data protection incident that must be reported.

Via a file — and with a decision beforehand: what are we taking with us?

What you need: name, address, date of joining, fee amount, email address.

What you should not take with you:

• Bank details, if collection is handled elsewhere.
• Details of health, ethnic origin, religion — they appear surprisingly often in membership lists, as a remark or as a “particulars” column.
• Former members in the active list. Anything that has to be kept for tax reasons, keep separately.

The switch is the only opportunity to sort out such things without discussion. Later someone will ask: “Why is that in there?”

And: do not send it around by unencrypted email to “just import it quickly”.

For collection you need a SEPA direct debit agreement with your bank and a mandate from each member — that is the real hurdle, not the software.

What needs to be clarified:

• Apply for a creditor identifier from the Bundesbank.
• Obtain mandates, in writing, with a mandate reference.
• Pre-notification before every collection (observe the deadline).
• Handle returned direct debits — they incur fees.

If your club has been doing this through club management software or the bank so far: leave it there. Collecting fees is an accounting process, not a website process.

What the website does well: take on new members and record their data cleanly. Collection can then happen elsewhere.

Out of the active list — but not immediately out of the system.

The reason: there are retention obligations. Fee payments are accounting transactions and are subject to the tax retention periods.

The clean way to handle it:

1. Set the status to “left”, with the date.
2. Remove them from all mailing lists. A former member no longer receives member mail — legally, too, that is the point at which a legal basis ceases to apply.
3. Delete after the retention periods have expired, in the annual review.

What you should not do: leave former members in the active list “just in case”. That produces wrong figures and the embarrassing invitation to the general meeting for someone who left three years ago.

With a real donation to yourself — there is no substitute.

The complete run-through:

1. Donate a small amount via your own website, using a private address.
2. Check that the money arrives — in the account, not just in the overview.
3. Check that the confirmation arrives and that it looks right.
4. Check that the entry appears in the donations overview.
5. Produce a donation receipt and look at it.

That takes half an hour and finds the errors that the first real donor would otherwise find.

Do it again before every larger appeal — especially if months have passed since the last donation.

More than most clubs prepare for, and it is the point at which club websites freeze.

The list:

1. User accounts: switch off the old ones, create new ones. Never pass on the password.
2. Legal notice (Impressum): the authorised board is a required detail.
3. Third-party login details: domain, mailbox, payment service, bank. This is the point where it gets expensive if nobody can get in.
4. Contact persons on the website, in forms, in the privacy notice.
5. Handover meeting, half an hour in front of the screen.

And the precaution for next time: login details in a password manager to which at least two board members have access. They belong to the club, not to the person.