Wants people to use a phone

I have designed a site for a non-profit organization that has t-shirts for people who donate $15 or more. The person in charge wants to have people call up and place orders via phone versus using pay pal for the donations. I've explained to her that the site would be more successful by having the online payment method.

Any Ideas of what I can tell her that would change her mind? She is a politician btw... o_O

If it's for campaign contributions there's good reason for requiring a phone.

Can't see any reason not to use both.

Is she willing to man the phones 24/7 (or to have them manned by volunteers) to accept donations, seems a bit wasteful, but 9-5 say to her knock yourself out.

@Tim:reason?

There's a lot of regulations on campaign contributions, limited whom can contribute and how much. A person on the phone is much more likely to be able to make sure the contributions are in line with the laws where a paypal form is not so well equipped.

Of course, the OP didn't actually say this is the purpose of the 'donations' just that it's set up for a politician, so I made an inference ...

It's actually not for her campaign but for a non-profit that she works with. The phone they will call would be her home number. The site has been having 40k plus visitors per month and was featured on msn.com, so it's getting alot of traffic. She would not be home enough to answer the phone and by having the online donation it would be easier for her.

I do agree that having both phone and online wouldn't be a bad option. But having only phone wouldn't she be missing out on a ton of possible donations?

She's not real familiar with the Internet and hasn't bought anything online before. That is why it is hard to get her to budge. So if there is any suggestions on what to say or do that would be helpful.

Show her the receipts generated by donations, I'm sure if she sees an audit trail or an email per donation she might feel a little better about it, not to mention get a few more ideas for you

I think she's both insane for listing her home number and secondly looks suspicious by doing so. She's not a credit card processor ... ? There's your issue right there. I don't like dealing with personal parties when I donate to charity groups myself. I expect a phone bank of paid operators and a website with a method to pay by credit card. Though I think you might want to expand beyond paypal. But hey it depends on your role. If you're being contracted to do the website just clam it and do what's requested. If you're an employ or otherwise have more interest than your direct services then maybe you should bother drudging through it.

Perhaps she could set up one of these special numbers that you can auto-magically donate certain amounts to the cause. But I cannot see why she would
a) want to give out here own phone number
b) not use online payment system as least as well as the phone

If she is a politician, tell her that her rival is doing what you suggested - she wouldn't want to be second best would be

Thank you, those suggestions were helpful. She has decided to go with a paypal donation, and still keeping here phone line open for call in donations.

glad to be of help ...