Add option to donate in EUR?

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Steven Deobald announced this week the new donation page has gone live. It’s looking nice! Kudos to the team.

Would it be possible to add the option to donate in euros (EUR)?

  1. More money for the foundation. When I pay in a currency other than euro, Visa and Mastercard charge a 2% currency exchange fee. I assume the foundation also has expenses in euros or could exchange currencies cheaper.
  2. Predictable recurring amount in euros. If I donate in USD will the monthly amount I’m charged fluctuate in euros? Only in the past 5 years there was a 25% difference between the highest and lowest EUR-USD exchange rate. The difference is much larger long term.

The eurozone, the countries of the European Union which use the euro as their currency, has a population of 350 million — at least as large as the USA.

Thank you for considering! If this is already planned or covered under Steven’s “we will keep iterating on this” promise, I’ll keep an eye out for updates on that. I understand this likely isn’t trivial to add.

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The GNOME Foundation is incorporated in the US, so at the end of the day it still needs to get USD in their account. It’s not trivial to obtain, and maintain, a bank account that operates in another currency, and it usually comes at the expense of a higher scrutiny from the tax agency.

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Stripe can also do currency conversion for the foundation, as detailed on Supported currencies | Stripe Documentation;

  • The currency of the charge, called the presentment currency
  • The currency accepted by your destination bank account or debit card, called the settlement currency

If the charge currency differs from your settlement currency, Stripe converts the charge to your settlement currency, with multiple options for presenting, converting, and charging customers in different currencies.

That would allow me to donate in EUR while the foundation receives it in USD, and Stripe charges the same 2% currency conversion fee.

This would let me pay in EUR, so the same amount charged monthly for me, and the foundation receives it in USD.

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Thanks for pointing this out! At the moment, providing alternative currencies isn’t a priority, as there’s quite a lot of manual work required with our Stripe products to add presentment currencies in round numbers.

I have added a card to our project wall, however. If we find the bandwidth to add additional currencies in the future, EUR would certainly be one of the first.

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