PayPal Payments for Small Non Profits
May 22, 2021

PayPal Payments for Small Non Profits

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with PayPal Payments

Our organization uses PayPal as our main center for payment processing. We use PayPal to send payments to contractors and vendors, collect payments from clients, and collect donations from users that don't want to use our donation software processing system. We consider PayPal to be our default for sending and receiving money.

PayPal is used across the entire organization, as this is the means by which we compensate our independent contractors that keep the organization running!

One of the main benefits of using PayPal as the payment source for contractors and vendors is that we have a central place to see all money movement in and out of our business checking. We have a separate system for the majority of our donations, but for the business operations end of things, PayPal is really handy. It's quick, easy, and low cost - plus the vast majority of people have a PayPal account, so it's fairly universal. We prefer this over a more instantaneous system like Zelle or Chase Quickpay because there's room for mistakes to be made. With instant payment systems, once you send a payment you can't get it back.
  • Send payments to contractors: The vast majority of our independent contractors who need to be paid for services accept PayPal. This helps us easily track how much we have paid individuals over the course of the year and know who to issue a 1099 to, as well.
  • Receive payments: Many of our clients write checks, but the clients who want an easy way to quickly send us a payment often use PayPal. Since it's a fairly universal platform, many people have access to it already in place so it's an easy solution.
  • PayPal Credit: We have used PayPal credit previously to finance a purchase of equipment our organization needed. We didn't have the cash on hand, but PayPal credit allowed us to purchase the item and pay back over the course of several months with no interest. This was a huge advantage for our organization.
  • Purchase Protection fee: Many of our clients are paying us after a service has been delivered. In those cases, it doesn't seem necessary to charge the full fee for purchase protection. The option for not including purchase protection is labeled "Friends and Family", which I understand is probably a marketing tool so more people will pay the fees, but it seems misleading. I wish there were an intermediary fee so we can compensate PayPal for providing the payment platform, but not have to pay the full 3% to process the payment.
  • Send Payments: We rely heavily on PayPal to send payments.
  • Receive Payments: Our clients who don't want to write a check find the ability to pay us via PayPal very convenient.
  • PayPal Credit: Having access to 0% financing for a short-term loan is very helpful when there's an interruption in cash flow.
  • The ease of moving money around with PayPal has definitely had a positive impact on our business objectives! We're able to quickly and easily receive money for services rendered and pay our contractors.
We use other products for other situations, but as far as sending money PayPal is hard to beat. We've used Square POS at live events to collect donations and payments for tickets, simply because the swipe accessory for iPhone was convenient and easy to use. We haven't had live events since March 2020, so I'm planning to look into whether PayPal offers a similar accessory for collecting payments in person.

We use Stripe as the backend payment processor on our website now because it is native to Squarespace. If that weren't the case, we'd be using PayPal still.

Do you think PayPal Payments Pro delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with PayPal Payments Pro's feature set?

Yes

Did PayPal Payments Pro live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of PayPal Payments Pro go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy PayPal Payments Pro again?

Yes

PayPal is a great solution for collecting and distributing payments. The interface is easy to use, and I especially like the PayPal.me link that each account can generate. This makes it easy to direct a client to your organization's URL and send payment directly from a single page.

PayPal also offers an easy donation button that can be generated and added to a website. For organizations in the early stages, this donation button is a great solution to needing a simple method for collecting money.

PayPal is trusted and known by a slightly older demographic than alternatives like Venmo. There are advantages to the social aspect of Venmo in some cases, but PayPal is a business application that looks and feels professional.

For sending payments to vendors or contractors, PayPal is the best solution I've found that gives you the flexibility of an instant payment to the end recipient's account but also isn't as instantaneous as a bank transfer. When I've needed to use PayPal disputes, I have felt PayPal is an advocate for fairly mediating conflicts and doesn't unreasonably favor the payee.