Online giving in ECA is powered by Stripe — the same payment processor used by Shopify, Lyft, and tens of thousands of churches. Stripe handles the credit card processing; your church receives a deposit directly to your checking account every 2–7 days. There's no third-party "giving company" holding your funds.
The setup happens entirely inside ECA — you don't need to visit stripe.com or learn a separate dashboard. We'll show Stripe's forms inline.
What you'll need handy
- Your church's EIN (employer ID number) — the IRS-issued nonprofit ID. If you don't have one, you can't process credit cards as a church; come back to this step once you've applied.
- Your church's legal name + address — exactly as filed with the IRS.
- A church checking account — routing + account number.
- One authorized person's ID — typically the pastor or treasurer. Stripe is required by federal law to verify the human running the account.
The flow
- Open Stripe setup.
- Click Start setup. ECA creates a Stripe Connected Account for your church in the background.
- Stripe's onboarding form loads inside ECA. Fill in:
- Business type → Nonprofit
- EIN, legal name, address
- The authorized representative (name, DOB, last 4 of SSN, ID upload)
- Bank account routing + account numbers
- Click Submit.
Stripe verifies your information. For most churches this takes 1–2 business days. Some applications are approved instantly; some need additional documents (Stripe will email you the request).
After approval
Once Stripe approves your account, online giving is live. The Give button on your home page becomes functional, your /give page accepts donations, and members on the App plan can give from inside the member app.
The nonprofit rate (2.2%)
ECA applies for the Stripe nonprofit rate on your behalf. Standard Stripe is 2.9% + 30¢; the nonprofit rate is 2.2% + 30¢. The application happens in the background — usually takes a few extra days after the initial onboarding.
Where the money goes
- Every donation hits your Stripe Connected Account (held by Stripe for a short time).
- Stripe pays out to your church bank account on a rolling schedule — usually every 2 business days for your first payouts, then weekly once trust is established.
- You can change the payout schedule (daily / weekly / monthly) inside Giving settings.
Questions about Stripe specifically
If you ever need to check a specific transaction, refund a donation, or change banking info, you can do that from ECA's giving admin — or, if you want the full Stripe dashboard, stripe.com → "Log in" → uses the email you used during Stripe setup.
For most churches, you never need to leave ECA. The Stripe dashboard is there if you need it, not because you should.