Soapbox Engage Blog

With Apple's much anticipated product announcement today heralding the iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch came news of Apple Pay which the company touts will "change how you pay". Working with the three major credit card services, American Express, Mastercard, and Visa, it promises a simple and secure alternative to paying with plastic.

Major media outlets like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal were quick to react to the brick-and-mortar aspect of the announcement, discussing the possibilities and challenges of vying with eBay, Google, and others to convince a lukewarm consumer base to swap their wallets for their smartphones at the point of purchase.

What has garnered less early attention is something which could prove far more significant for nonprofits and their online fundraising; namely, the ability to make a payment from a smartphone on a website with a single click.

Currently, online donations on mobile devices require input of payment information which can prove daunting to users on-the-go. With the advent of Apple Pay, the mobile online donor experience could be made radically more efficient - not just compared to the current mobile experience but the desktop experience as well, actually making it more desirable to give from a mobile device than a desktop.

What is more, online fundraisers could be better positioned than online retailers to take full advantage of efficiencies suggested by the new Apple Pay service. While online retailers will often need to gather more than payment information to facilitate order fulfillment, a nonprofit could potentially be able to give donors a one-click option to facilitate speedy donations.

Imagine an online world where easy asks of $5 and $10 proliferate on nonprofit websites to make the amount requested as simple to say yes to as the payment is to make with Apple Pay.

Imagine nonprofit websites which replace their Donate Now buttons in their headers with Donate $5 Now buttons that use Apple Pay to make it that much easier to convert visitors into donors.

It's just the initial day of the announcement and Apple Pay won't even be available until October but those imaginings have us intrigued as we consider options for our product roadmap that continue to make our nonprofits more successful in engaging with their donors and supporters.

What's your take on today's announcement from Apple? Do you think it has significance for the nonprofit community or was the coolest thing about it the fact that Apple Watch comes with a Mickey Mouse option?

Yeah, we dug that, too.

Want to spread the word?

Click to tweet: What Apple Pay means for nonprofit online donations http://bit.ly/1qffShf

Need an online donation tool for your nonprofit website?

Check out Soapbox Donations, one of the apps in our Soapbox Engage suite of online engagement tools.