What is a QR code?

QR codes act as a bridge between the offline and online world, by directing people to a website with a unique code image. Through a QR code, people can make a donation to your church’s online giving page on their smartphone.

You can try for this for yourself on screen; open the camera on your smartphone, hover over the QR code, and tap the notification that pops up. You should see St Mary Rotherhithe’s online giving page, where you could easily make a donation from your phone.

Creating a QR code

You can create QR codes for free, all you need is an online giving page. To find out more about setting up a page for your church, see our webpage about online giving, or contact a member of our Giving Team.

If you already have an online giving page, your provider may give you the option to download a QR code in the admin area of the website. Otherwise, there are many websites where you can generate QR codes for free, such as QR Code Monkey.

Sharing your QR code around the church building

You can share your QR code on any printed materials, such as posters, pew cards, newsletters and postcards. Whatever you display the code on, ensure that the image is large enough to be easily scanned.

Eye-catching posters can be an excellent way to enable digital giving in your church building. If you would like to make a QR code poster for your online giving page, you can use make one from our library of poster templates, available at the bottom of this page.

This technology is reliant on donors having internet connection (mobile data or WiFi) on their smartphones when they scan the code. If you church has very poor 4G signal inside, we would recommend that you share your QR code on resources that people can take home, such as a postcard or service sheet.

St Mary the Virgin, Lewisham shared a QR code in their garden, which is an area that many from the local community visit. So far this has raised over £750 towards their ongoing work in the parish (see Church Times article).

Sharing your QR code online

QR codes are best used for pointing people to your online giving page when they are not already browsing the web. For this reason, sharing a URL (website link) is the best way to point people to your donation page from your church’s website and social media.

Livestreams, however, can be a great place to share your QR code online, as people may watch the screen but not be surfing the web. You could display a slide with an invitation to give with the QR code before and after your service starts, like this church in the Diocese of London have done.

 

For more ideas on how to encourage giving in your parish, explore our resources online or contact a member of our Giving Team.

 

Template Resources

We have several QR code poster templates, customised for a variety of online giving providers. If your online giving page is with a different platform, please use the blank template.

Back to all blogs