I’ve read various posts about this but haven’t seen any solution yet. I went through the process to donate monthly, but when I got to the point that showed the percentage collected as a transaction fee, I decided it was better performance to make a one time donation for the total amount.
After subtracting the transaction fees from what I have in my budget for the donation, it was clear that iNaturalist would lose a substantial portion. As others have pointed out, an annual option would eliminate the 1100% increase in transaction fees. I’m in Japan, this is one reason that cash is still king here.
Is there a way to donate that solves this, and has anyone at iNaturalist ever shared why this type of policy came to be/exists between iNaturalist and Third-Party Payment Processors?
Any chance you overlooked an option in the donation set-up process?
I have donated annually for several years (for similar reasons as you, to reduce transaction and currency conversion fees, as I am not in the US) and was able to arrange to continue to do so when iNat changed their donation handling system early this year.
Hello! Thank you for your support and for asking these good questions, I hope I can clarify:
Regarding recurring annual gifts: iNaturalist does offer an annual option; however, the donation platform we now use does not allow us to display more than two frequencies at a time (per payment form)! We’ll look into how we can better inform people that an annual recurring gift is also an option.
In the meantime, please feel free to use the below form, which allows both monthly and annual donations and thank you again for your support! https://giving.inaturalist.org/page/recurring
Regarding payment methods and fees: You’re right that fees can add up, depending on the frequency and type of method used. Depending on the country in which you are located, different payment methods will be offered. For example, ACH (U.S. Direct Debit), PAD (Canada Direct Debit), SEPA Direct Debit (EU) and iDEAL (Netherlands) all offer lower fees. I believe there is an equivalent of these in Japan and can ask our vendor whether there are any plans to implement this. I hope that helps!
Thank you for the reply! The calculated fees from the link you shared are much better, but both Paypal and Google Pay failed, with the the following message “An error occurred, please try again shortly”. Maybe IP region restricted? The rates on the regular donation page linked from iNaturalist, have increased from the time I posted about this.
It’s too bad that NPOs can’t have donation fees waived. I’ve tried both methods several times, I will try again in a few days. If there are any other particulars about the payment info that I input that might be causing the error, please let me know.
