Data Developments is actively looking to support and help churches during the COVID-19 crisis.
The company, which specialises in administrative software for churches and charities, wants to help organisations that might not be able to setup websites or a donation button on their website.
Data Developments is one of ACAT’s longstanding Partners in Ministry, whose purpose is to support and serve the administration of the church. We collaborate with these partners to make members aware of their services.
Stephen Hendy, Data Developments’ managing director, told ACAT: “Some churches have recently reported their donations to be down by over 70% and so we are offering these services FREE of charge to help support churches at this time and to encourage donors to keep donating.
“For new users, or existing donation co-ordinator users, we are offering free use of MyGiving.Online – which is our donations platform – for 90 days, by which time we hope that services will be up and running.
“If they aren’t then we will extend this free period indefinitely until they are.
“Within the first two weeks of providing these services for free, we had almost 1,300 churches and charities sign up to MyGiving to enable donations to be received online.”
Data Developments is also running free weekly online training sessions and has also made the services of its technical support team available.
For churches that have their own website…
MyGiving.Online enable these churches to create digital donation options – including Donate Now buttons – which can be copied and pasted onto their website or their www.achurchnearyou.com listing.
This is immediately available and churches can sign up by clicking here.
For churches that do not have a website…
For these churches, Data Developments is making two options available.
1. These churches could still take advantage of MyGiving free for 90 days by adding a donation button link to their www.achurchnearyou.com listing.
2. Or alternatively they can create a “centralised donation system” – contact Data Developments for more details.
Free online training for church treasurers…
To help churches set up the essentials quickly, Data Developments intends to run free online training sessions every week.
People can log into these and Data Developments’ team will demonstrate ways to set up donation options, use the software, submit claims to the HMRC – and much more besides.
A chat feature is included so that questions can be asked during the training.
For further information about Data Developments’ free initiative as well as dates and times for the training courses please click here.
