Existing shareholders will be paid $1.42 per share, and it is expected the delisting will occur on May 12.

The sale was made to Pegasus Bidco. Pushpay identified the takeover being made by a United States investment firm Sixth Street Partners and Australian private equity firm BGH Capital, which together held 20.3% of shares. Read more

There had been an increase in the number of donors switching from cash to digital over the six-month period as a result of the pandemic, and those numbers were holding steady.

The company's expansion into the Catholic faith sector was expected to see continued growth for the business, said Pushpay chief executive Molly Matthews said in a statement to the market.

"As we shared at the start of the financial year, the Catholic initiative is our first step in investing to grow our customer base outside of our existing core customer base, and we have set the goal of acquiring more than 25 percent of the Catholic church management system and donor management system market over the next five years." Continue reading

After-tax profit jumped to US$13.4 million (NZ$19.6m) in the six months ended September 30, up from US$6.5m last year, while revenue rose 51 per cent to US$86.6m.

Founded in Auckland by Christians Chris Heaslip and Eliot Crowther, who felt awkward when they did not have any cash to make a donation in church one day, the digital payment platform for religious services is now the market leader in the United States, counting more than half of the top 100 churches among its customers. Read more

Established seven years ago, Pushpay is now one of the world's fastest-growing SAS (software-as-a-service) companies.

It has gone on to develop a suite of social media-style engagement tools. These include donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app.

"It's not about raising money any more but actually enabling communities," says independent chairman Bruce Gordon.

He says when they added a recurring giving option, their customers' income jumped another 3 or 4 per cent.

This has a positive impact on local communities, where the churches are raising money for social programmes such as those to tackle homelessness.

At the company's last quarterly update, Pushpay's customer base included 55 of the US's 100 largest churches and had generated $3b of giving payments.

"So, that's flowing straight to communities. It's very powerful for senior management to stand up with the team and say hey, your hard work has meant US$3b - and that will go close to US$5b this year - flowed straight to communities," said Gordon.

"It's very powerful to be able say so-and-so in California has just opened a foodbank and service because the extra 10 per cent revenue generated by implementing Pushpay. It's super cool."

The company is New Zealand-owned but does most of its business in the United States.

Gordon was speaking at the Icehouse fifth anniversary celebration dinner in Napier on 7 December.

Icehouse is a Hawke's Bay-based national start-up incubator and funder.

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• pressreader.com
• Image:.nzherald.co.nz

It also influences how generous the donations are.

The report says "Most strikingly, those attending religious services once a month or more make an average annual religious contribution of $1,848, while those attending religious services less than once a month donate $111."

Drawing on data from the University of Michigan's Philanthropy Panel Study, the report found giving to religious causes amounted to close to a third of all charitable giving in 2016.

It says researchers found that households attending religious services every week or more are 28 times more likely to give to religious causes than those that never attend.

Nonetheless, about one in ten households that never attend religious services still give to religious institutions. However their donations are smaller. On average these households donate about $67 annually.

In total, the research discovered religious institutions received $122.94 billion in 2016. This accounted for 32 percent of charitable donations.

These donations more than double the amount received by educational institutions, which rate as next highest sector within the not-for-profit sector. In total this sector received $59.77 billion in donations.

Source

• Giving USA
• Crux
• Image: givingusa.org

Stuff.co.nz says Chris Heaslip and Eliot Crowther got the idea while they were sitting in church one Sunday. When the plate came round they found they did not have any cash, but they did have their phones.

Another story is that initial idea started while Crowther was queuing at a coffee shop and wondering why on earth anybody was still having to do that.

But eventuallly they chose to nurture fresh pastures - principally charity donations and things such as utility bill payments on the go.

Pushpay is marketed as "the fastest, free, and convenient way to buy stuff, pay your bills, support your favourite charities or give to your church."

It allows you to," make secure 10 second payments from your iOS or Android smart device."

The business grew 10-fold in less than 10 months last year, going from average monthly revenue of $1m to $10m.

That intense growth meant the NZX-listed company led this year's Deloitte Fast 50 with 4574 per cent growth, almost four times more than the second fastest growing company on the list.

They are now based in the Untied States. They have more than 5200 merchants, including five of the top 10, and 30 of the top 100 largest churches in the US, and processed more than US$1b in payments a year.

Pushpay will keep focusing on the US church market and is on track to reach $100m in average monthly revenue by the end of 2017.

More than US$119 billion (NZ$162b) was given each year to religious organisations in the US and there were more than 340,000 churches.

Pushpay now has more than 5200 merchants, including five of the top 10, and 30 of the top 100 largest churches in the US, and processed more than US$1b in payments a year.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• idealog.co.nz
• pushpay.com
• Image: facebook.com

"I think of some benefactors of the Church that say 'take this offer for the Church,' and it is profit from the blood of those abused, treated as slaves, workers with poorly paid jobs," the pope said during his general audience in the Vatican on Wednesday.

"The people of God - that is, the Church - don't need dirty money. They need hearts that are open to God's mercy," said Pope Francis.

The pontiff said God wants people to turn away from evil and do what is just, not cover up their sins with gestures of sacrifice.

The pope said he would tell these donors to go away because God wants sinners "with purified hands" who have changed course, avoid evil and work for what is good and just, like aiding the oppressed and defending the weak.

"I am thinking of many, many refugees who are landing in Europe and don't know where to go," he said.

Pope Francis said the road to salvation isn't ritual sacrifice, which is condemned because, "instead of showing conversion, it claims to replace it."

Sources

CNS
AP/Crux
The Washington Post
Image: AP/The Washington Post

Pushpay provides mobile tools that help make payments easy between consumers and merchants and is geared to mobile charitable giving.

Some 93 percent of Pushpay's merchant clients are located in North America, with 7 percent across Australasia.

For the six months ended 30 September 2015, Pushpay exceeded its targets by 11 percent having increased merchant numbers by 111 percent, CEO, Chris Heaslip said.

It ended the half year with 2,102 merchants out of a faith sector including 314,000 churches with an average size of over 500 attendees.

During the period, Pushpay launched additions to its payments technology including eChurch Apps, Pushpay Fastpay and Virtual Terminal/Envelope Giving.

Pushpay Holdings increased its first-half loss while revenue more than tripled.

The company boosted spending on product development and sales in a bid to attract US churches to its system.

The Auckland-domiciled, Redmond, US-headquartered company posted a net loss of $6.1 million, or 12 cents per share, in the 6 months ended Sept. 30, from $2.6 million, or 7cps, a year earlier, it said in a statement.

Revenue jumped 290 percent to $6.3 million, while expenses rose 176 percent to $12.4 million.

Pushpay has a staff of 143, most of whom are in sales roles.

Source

• zdnet.com
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: image.slidesharecdn.com

His criticism came after a woman stole more than $27,000 from her workplace to keep up payments to her church.

Ana Fangaiuiha, worked for Countdown in Palmerston North for five years, and was promoted to be a checkout supervisor in January this year. That gave her the power to cash refunds without the permission of others.

She falsely refunding 292 items - including beer, groceries and vouchers - and kept the returned money for herself.

When her theft was discovered, she said she was under financial pressure because she was sending money to her mother in Tonga and making donations to her local church.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: New Zealand Herald

He said the church needs to stop being "ignorant" about the plight of poor people who are "slaving" to keep their "so-called heavenly masters" happy. He is fed up with the church's denial of pressuring its members to give.

He was "disgusted" about comments from the Secretary General of the Methodist Church, Reverend Vaiao Eteuati, last week, where he defended the church against accusations that it was contributing to the growing incidents of theft in Samoa.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer, Rev Eteuati said; "People are not obligated to give to the church. It is the aiga system and the matai system or matafale where people are asked to give to the church by heads of their families."

Rev Vaiao said the Methodist church encourages people to give only what they can. He said people feel obligated to give because they see it as a responsibility but this responsibility should be based on what they can afford.

Source:

• Samoa Observer
• Image: Dennis