Considering something like DipJar (https://www.dipjar.com/) for unattended credit card donations, pay-what-you-can performances, etc. Any other folks here thought about or used this or something similar?
Hi Lee,
I’m not aware of any clients using this type of service. It’s an interesting concept and I can certainly see the novelty associated with it.
Where using DipJar for a Pay What You Can performance may seem like a quick solution it does mean you would have to change the way you track your audience sizes. The information would no longer be in Theatre Manager. This can impact future reporting and potential grant writing as audience count would be stored outside the program and this type of information has a way of becoming lost over the years.
We would recommend using the Pay What You Can feature in Theatre Manager in conjunction with Before Event Sales.
1 Like
Following up on Bonnie’s response, I thought I’d add a little math to this as well.
It looks like a $345 investment, and then you’re bound to their credit card provider (3.5% + 0.30 per payment) an a subscription fee at $149/year.
By my estimation of their numbers the average donation is $10 – they claim $20.1 million dollars raised from 2.3 million dips, 20.1 / 2.3 = $8.74, but I’ll use $10 to err on the positive side and for easy math.
Each $10 donation is actually $10 - (10 * 0.035) - 0.30 = $9.35.
First year cost is $494, so that’s $494 / $9.35 = 52.83 uses per year to break even.
Second year cost is $149 / $9.35 = 15.94 uses.
The question is: Would the people using DipJar have given anyway? As in, is the novelty of DipJar actually causing 53 more $10 donations per year in the first year and 16 more $10 donations in the consecutive years than wouldn’t have otherwise occurred? Further, if you have smaller donation amounts, most of your donation gets eaten up by their fees, so I suspect there is a practical minimum to how much you would accept in these devices. Searching around the internet I don’t find many user reviews, only promotional content from the company itself.
As Bonnie mentioned, we have similar features that can help on the box office side of TM – and of course we have many online donation options, like round-up donations and donation suggestions on the cart.
We also have some new features coming that will allow for “Text 2 Give” and “Scan 2 Give” (Users scan a QR Code with their phone, and pay through a “Quick Pay” system which is Apple Pay and Google Pay compatible, depending on your merchant provider). A scanning “scavenger hunt” may have similar novelty to a device like this, but with less cost, as an idea.
1 Like
Thanks, @dmckeone and @Bonnie_Hamilton. We wound up, for now, going with a QR code to a donation page. The math and hypotheticals @dmckeone did are the same as the math and hypotheticals which made me unenthused about DipJar (besides the fact that I’m old and cranky and really would like all these kids to Get Off My Lawn), but sometimes people have Ideas…
Looking forward to the new features!
1 Like