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Finance

Payment Links fallback

Keep giving open on a Sunday when the give page is down, by posting one Stripe Payment Link per fund within 15 minutes.

Updated Sat 24 Oct 2026 For Finance team and the Sunday tech team

Open Payment links

If the website's give page, or the step that sends donors on to Stripe's checkout, ever stops working, giving shouldn't stop with it. The church keeps one Stripe Payment Link for each fund: a simple web address that opens Stripe's own payment page for that fund. Posting them takes less than 15 minutes.

When to use this

  • The give page shows an error, or the Continue to secure checkout button doesn't work.
  • It happens on a Sunday morning, during a giving appeal, or at year-end, when donors can't wait for a fix.

Don't switch for a problem with one donor's card: that's for the donor's bank.

  1. Open Giving › Payment Links. Each fund has its own card with its link.
  2. Select Copy message under Ready-to-post message. It lists every fund's link in a few friendly lines.
  3. Paste the message where donors will look:
    • the banner at the top of the website,
    • the description of the live stream,
    • a text or email to the congregation, if the outage is long.
  4. Tell the finance lead and the person who looks after the website that the fallback is live.

To share just one fund, select Copy link on that fund's card.

Switch back

When the give page works again:

  1. Take the links down from the website and the live stream.
  2. Write a short note of what happened, when, and how long the links were up, for the finance file.

Good to know

  • Gifts through a Payment Link land on the same Stripe account, carry the fund with them, and post to QuickBooks exactly like any other gift. Nothing needs fixing afterwards.
  • Payment Links take one-time gifts. Recurring gifts already set up keep running as normal.
  • The links in the sandbox are made up and go nowhere. The real links are created in the church's Stripe dashboard and kept in the giving runbook. They must be tested from time to time so they work on the day they're needed.

Top tips

  • Practise the switch once a quarter, on a weekday: copy the message, paste it into a draft banner, and time it.
  • Keep a printed copy of the fund links with the Sunday tech checklist, in case the back office itself is hard to reach.
  • Use the ready-to-post message rather than writing your own: it's already worded for donors and lists every fund.

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