Your year in Planning Center
Get an overview of what's new in Planning Center this winter, and find ways to streamline your workflow!
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
2 min read
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Year-end donation statements: 9 essential tips for a smooth tax season
Send year-end statements to your church quickly and easily with these 9 essential tips!
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
4 min read
Tell a better ministry story with new statement cover letter formatting
Use new formatting options for your statement cover letters to connect more meaningfully with your generous donors!
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
3 min read
New for You in Planning Center September 2024
Get an overview of what's new in Planning Center this fall, and find ways to streamline your workflow!
Planning Center
3 min read
Track nondeductible donations in Giving
You can now track two common types of nondeductible donations in Giving: qualified charitable distributions and donor-advised funds!
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
2 min read
New for You in Planning Center June 2024
Get an overview of what's new in Planning Center this spring, and find ways to streamline your workflow!
Planning Center
3 min read
Receive in-kind donations in Giving
Record, track, and acknowledge non-cash gifts from your donors!
Erin Baker
3 min read
Giving now available in Australia and New Zealand
We're releasing Giving in Australia and New Zealand to help more churches worldwide manage their ministries with an all-in-one system!
Planning Center
2 min read
Giving statements & tax receipts: pro tips & new updates
The new year is rapidly approaching, which means statement season (or tax receipt time, for our Canadian brethren of the north) is right around the corner! We have a few things to help you get through the season stress-free, and they’re all here in this blog! 1. A guide on how to generate statements in bulk. 2. Some updates to statement features in Giving that will improve the process for you this year. 3. A list of do’s, don’ts, and nice-to-knows of sending statements. 4. A list of h
Jeff Berg
5 min read
New automations: Follow-up with first-time givers
Use automations in Giving to automatically send a follow-up email to anyone who gives and express your gratitude!
Daniel Murphy
·Product Manager
2 min read
Faster, safer bank account verification with Stripe Financial Connections
Encourage congregants to give using ACH transfers with faster, safer bank account verification through Stripe Financial Connections.
Jeremy Ricketts
·Product Manager
4 min read
New notifications for Giving: alerts for recurring donations, first-time donors, and more
Many of our features come directly from customer requests. These requests help us understand what you want to see next and which parts of the product need improvement. So let’s look at the newest customer-requested feature: alert options for Planning Center Giving! Giving administrators can now find this on their profile under the “User Profile” tab. Customize Notifications for What You Care About We’re often asked, “How do I know when people give online?” An email about every new donation m
Jeremy Ricketts
·Product Manager
2 min read
Multi-Campus Support for Giving
You can now track donations from multiple campuses in Planning Center Giving! Giving now automatically tracks donation’s associated campus based on the donor’s set primary campus in Planning Center People. If you’re a multi-campus church and have already been tracking people’s campus affiliation, then you are all set to use this feature—no set up required! Here are all the details for where you’ll find campus information throughout Giving. Dashboard Filters All multi-campus churches will se
Jeremy Ricketts
·Product Manager
3 min read
Giving API Improvements
If you've developed a software integration with Planning Center Giving (or perhaps you've thought about developing one) then this update is for you! Giving now supports webhooks—messages sent from our software system to yours, letting you know about some new or changed data in our system. So instead of periodically looking for changes to the Giving database, your application can now have them delivered to you as they happen. You tell us what kinds of data you're interested in tracking, give u
Jeremy Ricketts
·Product Manager
3 min read
Improved Bank Verification for Donors
Late last year we quietly released an improvement to how donors verify their bank accounts for ACH bank transfer donations—the most cost-efficient way to give at just $0.25 per donation. With this update, we expanded our support for instant account verification from roughly 4,800 banks and credit unions to over 11,100 banking institutions across the US. As a result, more of your donors can connect their bank to Planning Center Giving to give via ACH instead of their credit card—saving you mone
Jeremy Ricketts
·Product Manager
4 min read
Giving Free for Any Church Stuck Under Contract
One of the most common obstacles between churches and using Planning Center Giving is a contract with another company—covering two payments is too much of a financial commitment. We genuinely want your church to use tools that work for you and your congregation, and we want to remove any potential obstacles between you and the software you want to use. So if your church is under contract with another donation management company, we will waive your subscription fee to Planning Center Giving for
Planning Center
3 min read
New Permission Levels in Giving
Donation data is some of the most sensitive information in your Planning Center account. Now, there’s a new way to make sure people have just the right level of access to do their job while maintaining privacy for your donors—permission levels. Three New Roles Based on customer feedback on permission levels, we created three new roles in addition to the all-powerful level of Administrator (who can still control all parts of the system, including who has access to these permissions). * Count
Jeremy Ricketts
·Product Manager
2 min read
Introducing Donor Pledge Campaigns
An annual church budget or a plan to build a new church building usually starts with a question: what can we accomplish as a community? A pledge campaign can help your church find the answer. Unlike a fundraiser, which asks for a donation today, a pledge campaign asks for a commitment to long term giving. For this reason, a pledge campaign is typically designed for your regular, consistent donor base. As we talked to churches about how they use donor pledges, two common use cases we found were
Jeremy Ricketts
·Product Manager
3 min read
Make Online Giving Easy for Your Church
Online giving might be unfamiliar territory for some of your congregants, and the unfamiliar is always a little intimidating—no matter how many times you promise people it’s easy. We want to help you make this transition smoothly by providing a guide on how to make the world of online giving more approachable to your congregation. Get the Word Out Although you may have already shared details about online giving on social media or during announcements, it’s a good idea to reach out to the peo
Jeff Berg
4 min read
Lower Processing Fees
When it comes to processing online payments, our commitment to you is twofold: we will only partner with providers that meet our high standards of reliability and extensibility; and we will strive to keep your fees as low as possible. Starting today, the credit and debit card processing rate for Giving and Registrations will be reduced to 2.15% + $0.30 for US* customers. Compared to the prior rate of 2.3% + $0.30, this new rate will save our customers at least $1.6 million collectively over th
Planning Center
2 min read