Overview
Ministrium’s finance module is a wrapper on top of Stripe Connect designed for churches. This page explains the end-to-end flow in 3 minutes.
The flow, in one picture
Donor ──payment──► Stripe Connect ──payout──► Your church's bank
│
└──event──► Ministrium ──receipt──► Donor (email/PDF)Key point: money never touches Ministrium. Stripe charges it and deposits to your bank. Ministrium hears via webhook and records the donation, issues the receipt, and updates reports.
Why Stripe Connect
We use Stripe Connect (not regular Stripe) for three reasons:
- Each church has its own Stripe account linked. Its legal name, its EIN/Tax ID, its bank account.
- KYC/AML compliance is on Stripe, not Ministrium.
- If Ministrium disappeared tomorrow, your church would keep its Stripe account and its recurring donations.
Fees
Two fees apply to every donation:
| Item | How much | Who charges |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe processing | 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction (varies by country and method) | Stripe |
| Ministrium platform | 0% on Starter / Growth / Enterprise plans | — |
Ministrium charges no fee on donations. The plan is paid by monthly subscription; processing is purely what Stripe charges.
Turn on “Allow donor to cover the fees” in Donations → Settings. When the donor wants to give $100, the system offers $103.20 so the church receives a clean $100. ~30% of donors opt in.
Supported payment methods
- Card (debit and credit): every country Stripe operates in.
- ACH (US bank transfer): lower fee, ideal for large gifts.
- SEPA (eurozone)
- Apple Pay / Google Pay: if the donor is on mobile.
- Cash: loggable manually from the dashboard to reconcile Sunday offering.
One-time vs recurring
| Type | When to use |
|---|---|
| One-time | Sunday offering, project gift |
| Recurring | Monthly tithe, prorated annual pledge |
Recurring is fully handled Ministrium → Stripe. The donor can pause, cancel, or change the amount from their personal portal without going through the church.
Multi-campus
Each donation is tagged with its originating campus (where given). But the money lands in a single church bank account. Reports can filter by campus to see how much each one generated, but accountingwise it’s one entity.
Next steps
- Connect Stripe if you haven’t yet.
- If you have, receive your first test donation.