Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Does Your Youth Group Take Credit Cards?

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Youth group credit cardsDon’t worry, I’m not suggesting young people should have to pay to be part of your youth work / youth ministry! Do you ever have times though where you wish that you could take credit card payments for some reason relating to your youth work:

  • When organizing trips
  • Taking payment for youth retreats, instead of having to insist they go old school by writing a check
  • At youth fundraiser events, instead of only accepting cash
  • Accepting donations

In the past, you’d need a merchant account with a bank, with a bulky card reader that needed to be plugged in, paying expensive monthly fees and transaction fees. In other words – never gonna happen.

Those days are no more

There’s a company called Square that was founded a couple of years ago by Jack Dorsey (who also created Twitter) and Jim McKelvey. Square offer a free card reader to businesses, sole traders and – most handily for us youth workers – non-profits.

The card reader has a 3.5mm jack connector that fits into your Android phone, iPhone or iPad where you’d normally put your headphones. You then download an app that enables you to start accepting payments straight away. It really is as simple as that.

I’d mentioned earlier that in the past, merchant accounts carried high monthly fees and transaction fees, but Square is far more reasonably priced. There are no monthly fees and you only pay a 2.75% transaction fee when physically swiping a card. You then have the person sign for the transaction on your phone (see the picture to the left). Watch people’s jaws drop when they see this in action!

You can also use the Square app to accept a credit card payment even when the cardholder isn’t with you. This might be because a parent has given their card number on a youth retreat registration form, or somebody has entered their card number on a donation form. The transaction fees when typing in a card number manually are slightly higher though, due to the extra risk incurred by Square in accepting these types of payments. However, the fees are only 3.5% + $0.15, so still not very high.

How much do the fees come out to?

So that you don’t have to do the math (and to give me an excuse to do some as I love math), here are some examples of payments you might want to take, along with how much the fees would be:

1) Payment of $50 for a trip to a theme park

  • Swiping: 2.75% fee = $1.38, so net amount taken is $48.62
  • Manual transaction: 3.5% fee = $1.75 + additional $0.15 fee totals $1.90, so net amount taken is $48.10

2) Payment of $150 for a youth retreat

  • Swiping: 2.75% fee = $4.13, so net amount taken is $145.87
  • Manual transaction: 3.5% fee = $5.25 + additional $0.15 fee totals $5.40, so net amount taken is $144.60

3) Donation of $25

  • Swiping: 2.75% fee = $0.69, so net amount taken is $24.31
  • Manual transaction: 3.5% fee = $0.88 + additional $0.15 fee totals $1.03, so net amount taken is $23.97

If it’s likely that most parents would want to pay by card for something like a youth retreat, you could add the cost of the transaction fees to the total cost per person. This would mean you maintain the same amount to spend in your budget, without having to cut back to compensate for the fees being taken out.

One other small benefit of the Square card reader is that you get a sign to display that you accept credit cards (see image to the right). This could come in handy if you have a garage sale fundraiser, Krispy Kreme fundraiser, car wash or something similar.

You can sign up for a free Square card reader here.

A couple of additional things:

  1. We don’t get anything out of recommending Square – I just think it’s a really cool payment option that could help other youth workers
  2. It’s only available in the US at the moment. However, given that Visa, Richard Branson and many others have invested in Square, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them go international over the next few years

Question: Have you used Square? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below.

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Financial Awareness – Youth Work Session Plan Idea

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Financial awareness youth work session plan idea
Help your youth cut their spending and increase their saving with a session on budgeting

Financial skills, while they may not be the most exciting of topics for your youth, are vitally important for their future.

You may incorporate financial lessons into your regular youth work sessions – for example, when you complete a youth group fundraiser you may take some or all of your youth with you to the bank to learn how to fill out a deposit slip. Or you may decide to hold stand alone financial awareness sessions. If so, here is one activity to help make your session practical and fun!

Take some time to teach your youth about what a budget is, how it works and why they might need one.

Budget Info Tips

  • A budget is a way to keep track of the money that is coming in (from your job, parents, loans or welfare/benefits) and what is going out (food, rent, bills, movies, car, public transport, etc)
  • Identify how much they have coming in (you can even give them a pretend salary and expenses role play to help them understand the important expenses that come with being an adult) and how much they have going out. Some youth may already have a job and expenses that they pay for with that job, so when possible use real life examples.
  • Help them identify saving (around 10% if possible) of their income for emergencies and/or retirement.
  • If you work with a faith-based youth group you may want to encourage them to include a 10% tithe, or for other youth possibly giving to charity in their budget.

Once they understand the basics and have the important information, get them to create brochures or a website to teach other youth about the financial skill of budgeting. They could even create a series of brochures and web pages if you offer more than one youth work session on financial skills.

Using a computer is a fun and easy way to create a brochure, plus the young people will be learning useful IT skills. However, it’s possible to use the traditional method of paper, glue, markers and magazine pictures or drawn images. Often youth don’t work with these mediums anymore and it can be a welcome break from technology.

One useful tool for Financial Awareness skills in the UK is UK Youth’s Financial Awareness Toolkit. Some ideas may be helpful for youth programs worldwide, although the specific worksheets and financial terms are UK specific.

Question: What activity would you use in a financial skills session plan? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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5 Reasons To Choose A Youth Retreat Theme And Aim

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Youth retreat aim and themeNow that you’ve sat down and worked out the reasons you want to run a youth retreat, you’ll have a good idea of your vision. A good next step is to decide on the aim and theme of the youth retreat.

What’s the difference between an aim and a theme? An aim is what you want to achieve, while a theme is the subject you’ll be covering during the youth retreat – often in order to help you achieve the aim.

Choosing your youth retreat aim and theme early in the planning process will actually help with the rest of the planning. How so? Consider the following things you will organize and how knowing your youth retreat aim and/or theme will assist these areas:

1) Retreat center

If you choose a theme about nature, creation, etc. for your youth retreat, booking a retreat center in the mountains or a forest will help tie in with that theme, rather than booking a center not surrounded by nature. If your aim relates to team-building, a retreat center which offers a lot of group activities will facilitate that.

2) Volunteers

Knowing your youth retreat theme and aim upfront means potential volunteers can see that you’re well organized and will have more confidence in your leadership. It can also be a good idea to include your volunteers when choosing an aim and theme for the youth retreat in the first place. That way they can give their own suggestions, which in turn helps them to feel more included in the planning and provides a sense of ownership.

3) Parents

If you haven’t set an aim or chosen a theme and parents ask what the youth retreat is about, you might struggle for an answer. Therefore, having an aim and theme chosen before speaking to parents about the youth retreat will give them greater confidence in your abilities – something youth workers and youth pastors will always welcome!

4) Budget

The largest part of a youth retreat budget will be allocated to paying for the retreat center. As your aim and theme can affect which retreat center you book (as mentioned above), it can in turn affect your budget. Depending on your youth retreat theme and aim, you may also need to purchase additional resources which will further affect your budget. It’s best to know this upfront, rather than having several unplanned expenses further down the line.

5) Activities

Once you’ve chosen an aim and a theme, you can start planning activities and games for the youth retreat that relate to them.

So even if your next youth retreat isn’t happening until next year, start thinking now about what theme you want to cover – it could save you time and hassle further down the line.

**We’ve published a book to help anyone planning a youth retreat. It has a chapter dedicated to setting youth retreat aims and objectives, as well as giving 85 youth retreat theme ideas. Find out more about How To Plan A Youth Retreat here**

Question: What youth retreat themes have you used before and did they work well? Please let us know in the comments below.

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10 Reasons To Run A Youth Retreat

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10 reasons to run a youth retreatBefore planning a youth retreat, it’s worth asking yourself “What do we want to achieve with this retreat?” You may only have one youth retreat objective, or you may have several:

  1. There’s a theme you want to cover over a weekend
  2. You’ve noticed that your youth develop a deeper faith while at youth retreats (if the retreat is run by a church)
  3. There are a number of new youth in your group and you want them to have an opportunity to bond
  4. You and other helpers want a chance to build a deeper relationship with the young people – something that happens more easily at a youth retreat
  5. Your church or organization runs a youth retreat every year, so the students would be disappointed if there wasn’t one
  6. You want to organize something fun that the youth can invite their friends to
  7. You want to celebrate your students graduating
  8. Your young people are from low-income families and so wouldn’t normally have a chance to get away
  9. Your group is getting a new leader or youth pastor and a youth retreat would provide a good time for them to be introduced
  10. You want to book a guest speaker to come and speak to your young people and a weekend retreat would be the ideal time

If you have a clear objective of what you want to achieve, you’ll be a lot more focused on what you need to do to make the youth retreat a success. It’ll give you a clearer idea of what kind of retreat center to book, how much it’ll cost, what activities you can do and how you should promote it.

Having a vision of what you want to achieve will also inspire other adults to help you lead the youth retreat and will increase interest among the students. Parents will also be more supportive, as you’ll be able to tell them how their children will benefit from the time away.

**We’ve now published a book to help anyone planning a youth retreat. Find out more about How To Plan A Youth Retreat here**

Question: What are some reasons you run youth retreats? Let us know in the comments below.

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