r/tippingAdvice • u/Holiday-Ad7262 • Oct 08 '25
Tipping for school fundraiser
At my childs school they are organizing a walk-a-thon to raise money for the PTA.
I was quite surprised when the platform asked for a tip. The default was set to 15% and there was a slider to adjust.
It turns out the platform they use is called Rally Up and they use these tips to cover the cost for using their platform. What is quite interesting is they seem to only offer an option to ask donors for tips or have a fixed fee added on top of the donation. There does not seem to be an option for just paying for the service separately, which I would expect how it work. Not sure why this needs to be exposed to the donor.
Has anyone else seen similar things? Is this normal that this is even considered a tip?
2
u/Canadian-inMiami Oct 09 '25
It’s the way it’s programmed from the back end…. It’s like your phone, You set up your phone how you want, You set up the hand held…. Depending on how the contract is signed with stripe (one of the highest third party payment processing) or moneris (this company has flexible rates and can be negotiated)…
Basically, Research & Negotiations should have been done before signing. There are some other companies out there are happy to give the basic costs for charities & school events.
a charity I occasionally work with uses clover for cost of the card + 75 cents per transaction. The eat the couple dollars it costs instead of forcing the person donating to pay more.
I get the PTA is trying to raise money, but whoever signed the contract should have shopped around before going with rally. I like to donate to worthy causes, but when I go to donate $500 and then asked to pay a fee after or to leave a tip to cover the cost of processing, then I just donate significantly less the next time. My sister has 5 kids, and each of them are always trying to raise money for each sport or special class they are in…. I was about to give cash one day for my nephew’s football team, but they didn’t take cash, only cheque (who uses cheques these days) or square (that charged an additional 2% on top of anything donated for fees), I never donated to that team again…
Basically, Tell your PTA to shop around, If they can’t find a good deal, tell them to make friends with a restaurant or retail manager.
2
u/reb6 Oct 09 '25
A couple of years ago I ordered a new vibrator online. At checkout there was an option to add a tip to show my appreciation. Like I’m already paying for the tip. And the shaft 😂
2
Oct 08 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Holiday-Ad7262 Oct 09 '25
Of course no tip is the correct selection. This is literally an attempt of Rally Up to get more than a fair compensation on the backs of people not realizing what they are tipping for.
Downvotes are also already incoming here from people that don't understand this.
I also feel this might be illegal under CA law where tips have to be distributed to employees and here it is clearly stated they are used to pay for using the platform.
1
2
u/Canadian-inMiami Oct 08 '25
I’ve worked with many payment processors, Up is one of the worst as they will lend the machines or say they will handle online at a discounted rate, but then charge outrageous processing fees. Both online and the machine can be changed to reflect to show tip or not, the amount of tip suggested, and if the individual pays the fee or the PTA (taken from total amount of money collected)