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Connect Stripe and your congregation gets a giving page, personal dues payment links, and online payments that land in your ledger on their own. Money goes directly to your congregation’s own Stripe account. KehillaHQ never holds it, and card or bank details never pass through KehillaHQ at all. Go to Settings, then Payments and data sources. The Stripe card is where everything starts.
The Payments and data sources page with the Stripe card showing the Connect Stripe button and the nonprofit discount tip

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Who can do this

Admin and Financial Admin can connect Stripe, turn the giving page on and off, and copy links. Board Member can see whether Stripe is connected but cannot change it. Stripe itself asks that the person completing its setup have real responsibility for the congregation, such as a treasurer, president, or executive director. Have that person do the connecting.

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What to gather before you start

If your congregation is new to Stripe, plan for ten to fifteen minutes and collect these first so you can finish in one sitting. About your congregation
  • Its legal name, exactly as it appears on IRS records
  • Its EIN
  • Mailing address, phone number, and website (a sentence describing the congregation works if there is no website)
About the person filling in the form Stripe is required by US law to verify a real person at every organization that accepts payments. This is standard for any payment provider, and none of it is visible to KehillaHQ.
  • Legal name, date of birth, and home address
  • Social Security number, often just the last four digits
  • Occasionally a photo of a government ID, if Stripe cannot verify automatically
About your bank
  • The routing and account numbers for the account where payouts should land. A voided check or your online banking shows both.
One decision to make ahead of time Your statement descriptor is the name members see on their card statements. Stripe requires 5 to 22 characters that clearly match your congregation’s name. “Temple Beth Israel” works. An abbreviation nobody recognizes, or your bookkeeper’s name, will confuse members and invite disputed charges.
If your congregation already has a Stripe account, you can sign in with that login partway through. Stripe will reuse the details it already has, and the whole thing takes a couple of minutes.

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Connecting, step by step

1

Click Connect Stripe

On the Stripe card, click Connect Stripe. You are taken to Stripe’s own secure setup site. The address begins with connect.stripe.com and the page says it is partnering with KehillaHQ.
2

Choose the email for your congregation's Stripe account

A role address such as treasurer@yourcongregation.org is better than a personal one, so access survives board turnover. If your congregation already uses Stripe, use that account’s email and sign in.
3

Follow Stripe's prompts

Stripe asks for the congregation details, the personal verification, and the bank information from the checklist above. Nothing you type here is sent to KehillaHQ.
4

Return to KehillaHQ

When Stripe is done it sends you back. The Stripe card now shows Connected. Payouts may read Pending Stripe review for a day or two while Stripe checks your bank account; payments work in the meantime.
Stripe's hosted setup page, headed Get started with Stripe, with a note that KehillaHQ partners with Stripe for secure payments
If you get interrupted, nothing is lost. The card shows Setup incomplete with a Resume setup button, and Stripe picks up where you left off. If the card shows Needs attention, Stripe usually wants one more thing, most often the identity document. Click Open Stripe dashboard to see exactly what. Once you resolve it, the card in KehillaHQ updates on its own.

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Turn on your giving page

Connecting Stripe does not, by itself, put anything in front of your members. Once the card shows Connected, a Giving page tick box appears on it.
1

Set up your funds first

The giving page lets a member choose which fund their gift supports, and the list comes straight from your Funds page. Make sure the funds you want to offer exist and are active, and that one is marked as the default. See Funds.
2

Turn the giving page on

Tick Giving page on the Stripe card. Your congregation’s giving link appears beside it with a Copy link button.
3

Share the link

Put it in your newsletter, on your website, in an email signature. Anyone with the link can give. No sign-in is needed.
The Stripe card after connecting, showing the Connected badge, the Giving page box ticked, and the giving link with a Copy link button
The page carries your congregation’s name, your list of funds, suggested amounts of $18, $36, $72, and $180, and a place to type any other amount. Members can add a short note, such as “in memory of” or “in honor of” someone, and it comes through to your ledger. Payment happens on Stripe’s own checkout, by card or by bank transfer.
The public giving page for Congregation Beth Shalom with a fund picker, four suggested amounts, an other amount field, and an optional note
Untick the box at any time and the page simply stops existing until you tick it again. Every household with a dues commitment can be sent its own private payment link. Open the household from the Dues page (or its Statement tab on the household profile) and click Copy dues link. Paste it into an email. When the household opens it, the page greets them by name, shows their open balance for the year, and fills in that amount. They can pay all of it, part of it, or more. Whatever they pay is applied to their commitment automatically, and their dues status updates on its own. A dues link works through the end of that dues year plus a month of grace, then expires. If someone opens an expired link, they see a gentle note and can still give to a fund. The button only appears once the giving page is on, since a link needs somewhere to go.
The dues page with the Adler household flyout open, showing the Copy dues link button in the flyout header

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Where online payments show up

  • Gifts to a fund appear in Donations with a Stripe badge and the card or bank transfer method, filed to the fund the member chose. If the member wrote a note, it is on the entry.
  • Dues payments made through a personal link are applied to that household’s commitment straight away. You will see them on the household’s statement and in the ledger, no filing needed.
  • Payments that arrive without a fund, which can happen if your congregation also creates its own payment links inside Stripe, land in The To file inbox for a person to file, exactly as PayPal payments do.
Card payments are recorded the moment they clear. Bank transfers take a few days to clear, and the payment appears in KehillaHQ once the money has actually arrived. If a bank transfer fails, nothing is recorded. If you refund a payment in full from your Stripe dashboard, the entry in KehillaHQ gains a Refunded badge and stops counting toward totals. Partial refunds are left for you to record by hand, since only you know how they should be treated.
Members do not receive a receipt from KehillaHQ. Stripe can email receipts for you. In your Stripe dashboard, turn on emails to customers for successful payments, under the customer emails settings. It is worth doing on day one.

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After you’re connected

  • Apply for Stripe’s nonprofit discount. Stripe offers lower processing rates to 501(c)(3) organizations. Email nonprofit@stripe.com from the address on your Stripe account, with your determination letter to hand. Each congregation applies on its own account, and it is worth doing straight away.
  • Expect the first payout to take a few days. Stripe holds a new account’s first payout a little longer while it verifies the bank account. After that, payouts arrive on a rolling schedule you can see in your Stripe dashboard.
  • Turn on receipt emails in Stripe, as above.

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Common questions

Does KehillaHQ see our bank account or card numbers? No. Everything sensitive is entered on Stripe’s site and stays with Stripe. KehillaHQ keeps only the connection itself and its status. Who pays Stripe’s processing fees? Your congregation does, at the rates on your own Stripe account, which is why the nonprofit discount is worth applying for. KehillaHQ adds no fee of its own. What appears on a member’s card statement? Your statement descriptor, which is your congregation’s name. Not KehillaHQ. Can we disconnect later? Yes, at any time, from the same settings card. Disconnecting turns off the giving page and dues links. Payments already recorded stay in your ledger, and your Stripe account itself is untouched. You can reconnect later. We already take donations through Stripe on our website. Does this conflict? No. Connecting KehillaHQ creates a Stripe account for the congregation that KehillaHQ can work with. Anything you already do in Stripe carries on as before. If you would rather have everything in one Stripe account, tell us at support@kehillahq.com; linking an existing account is on our list. What about PayPal? PayPal works differently: KehillaHQ can bring PayPal payments into your ledger, but the giving page and dues links run on Stripe only. See Connecting PayPal.

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Stripe’s own guides

Stripe’s documentation and support are good. The pages congregations find most useful: