Collection basket goes high-tech. 'People wanted to give more'

FRESNO, Calif. -- Collection baskets at two Central Valley-area Catholic churches have gone high-tech, with credit card readers strapped to their sides so parishioners can tap in $20 or $40 donations as the baskets are passed down the rows of pews.

So far, only Fresno’s Holy Spirit Catholic Church and Visalia’s Good Shepherd Catholic Parish, which has several churches under its umbrella, are part of the pilot program. Holy Spirit’s card readers were first in operation late summer, followed by Good Shepherd in late September.

Though it did not provide total figures, the Diocese of Fresno, which covers eight counties and governs 87 Central Valley parishes, said donations have increased substantially since introduction of the card readers .

Pete Márquez, deacon and business manager at Holy Spirit, said the Christmas collection was up 11% and overall, “we’re about 18% above what we were at this time last year. So, it has worked well.”

Church officials say relying on people having cash is no longer an option, especially in the 17- to 44-year-old demographic that tends to be cashless and is the same group the church wants to cater to and attract. The Diocese also is hoping to broaden its donor base with the program.

“Those are the ones we’re targeting. I think it’s way overdue, because they’ve gotten lax. And, as you know, historically, and data shows, Catholics are the worst givers,” said Pastor Fr. Alex Chávez at Good Shepherd in Visalia.

Pew Research shows 7-8% of a Catholic community carries the entire financial weight of a congregation when it comes to donations, Chávez said.

Chávez said no matter what culture parishioners come from, the younger demographics are going cashless.

“It’s cross-cultural,” he said.

Fresno Diocese on cutting edge with the tech

About two and a half years ago, Fresno Diocese Bishop Joseph V. Brennan formed a partnership with the Ontario-based company Tiptap, to provide parishioners a venue to donate via card tap.

With the plan, Fresno was joining a burgeoning national trend as an early adopter.

In the Catholic Church, just over 100 parishes across the country are using card readers for collection, including dioceses in Raleigh, N.C., Little Rock, Ark., St Paul, Minn., Denver, and recently launched with 16 devices in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, according to Mark Jordan, managing director of sales and retention with TipTap in North America.

In California, two other churches, one in San Francisco and one in Santa Monica, are using card readers for cashless collection at mass.

Chávez said Holy Spirit and Good Shepherd are “the guinea pigs, so we’re ironing out all the kinks” before the dioceses roll it out to all parishes.

Isabel Garcia, who attends Saint Charles Borromeo church in Visalia, told The Bee after a Sunday mass this month that she finds the credit card readers convenient because her bank lacks local branches, making it difficult for her to access cash.

“It just makes it a lot easier to be able to just tap and be able to support my church,” said the 25-year-old from Visalia.

Jeanette Valencia and her family used the card reader to make a contribution at Saint Charles Borromeo, one of the Good Shepherd parishes.

“I love it,” said the 40-year-old mother who rarely carries cash. “It’s convenient to use.”

Earlier this month, Márquez, the Holy Spirit deacon, said one of the devices wasn’t working because it wasn’t charged. He received an email from one of the parishioners, in her late twenties, saying she was concerned that the device wasn’t working and that she couldn’t contribute.

“That’s how they contribute. So you can tell some people are really getting used to it,” he said.

How digital collection basket program works

At Holy Spirit, Márquez said they have 12 collection baskets with two card readers on each basket for a total of 24 devices that parishioners can use to tap either a $20 or a $40 donation. Plus, in the vestibule area of the church there are two kiosks with similar denominations, plus a $50 option. That kiosk can be relocated to other areas for church functions.

“What’s kind of amazing is we don’t take collection at daily mass, but a lot of the people that go to daily mass on the way out will tap that too. So it has helped in that regard,” Márquez said.

Good Shepherd is a consolidated parish and includes multiple sites — Holy Family, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Mary’s and St. Thomas The Apostle. Chávez said the program is active at St. Mary’s and Saint Charles.

“At Saint Charles, we have 44 baskets, and we decided to go with one apparatus, a (card reader) per basket, and it’s been trial and error,” Chávez said. “We started with $5, $10. We realized quickly that that was too low of a denomination. People wanted to give more.”

Chávez said those devices were sent back to be traded for $20 devices, one per basket, and the only option to tap for collection during mass. The one amount per device is intentional so that it doesn’t slow down the basket moving around, he said.

Saint Charles also has several kiosks located in the church vestibule and at certain exit doors where people can tap in $100, $50 and $25 denominations.

Márquez said the biggest struggle so far has been getting the ushers comfortable with managing the card readers.

“They’ve really taken a lot of ownership in it, and they like to make sure that it’s working, and that it’s getting better,” Márquez said. “They think it’s theirs, theirs to make sure it works. So, no, we haven’t had any complaints.”

Chávez said the ushers are key people in the success of the program.

At his parish, Chávez said he had one of the ushers quit on him because the usher believed that the new style of collecting using the card readers during mass was offensive.

“It’s just providing a venue for those that don’t carry cash. It’s that simple,” Chávez said. “Different reactions, but the majority of the reactions have been very pleasant, most of them saying, it’s about time.”

Chávez said using card readers for collection was never an “opportunity to make money out of it. I saw it as a spiritual need, because our faith is tied to giving.”

“Expression of our faith is to give,” he said. “And that’s the part that I think is lacking.”