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For generations, the charity collection tin has been part of Australian community life — rattling outside train stations, sitting on shop counters, and passed hand to hand during a doorknock appeal. It still works. But roaming collectors and volunteer fundraisers are running into a quiet problem: the person who would happily give often has nothing in their pockets to give with.
Cash hasn't disappeared — but fewer people are carrying it
It would be a mistake to declare cash dead. The Reserve Bank's 2025 Consumer Payments Survey found that around 15% of payments are still made in cash and about half of Australians use cash in a typical week — and for the first time in the survey's history, cash use has stabilised rather than fallen. Around one in four payments under $10 are still made with coins and notes. Cash matters, especially to older and lower-income donors, and charities should keep accepting it.
The catch is what people carry day to day. Plenty of Australians now leave the house with a phone and a card and no cash at all. For a collector standing on a footpath, that is the difference between a donation and an apologetic "sorry, I've got nothing on me." The tin hasn't stopped working — there are simply fewer coins to drop in it, and a growing share of would-be donors who can't reach the ones they have.
What "contactless collection" actually means
Going contactless isn't about buying a single card reader for the office. For a fundraising team spread across footpaths, shopping centres and community doors, it means turning the phone each volunteer is already holding into a way to accept a gift on the spot. In practice that can include:
- Tap to Pay — a donor taps their contactless card, phone or watch straight onto the volunteer's smartphone
- QR codes — printed on a lanyard, badge or the tin itself so a passer-by can scan and give
- Payment links — sent by SMS or email to capture a pledge before the moment passes
- PayID — an instant bank-to-bank transfer, handy for larger one-off gifts
Pebl's guide to how Tap to Pay on smartphones can work for non-profits walks through the mechanics, but the idea is simple: the donor gives in seconds and nobody has to hunt for an ATM first. The same phone can also take donations at events without an EFTPOS machine, so a roaming street team and a stall team can run on identical tools rather than a drawer full of mismatched hardware.
A quick word on fees
It's worth being honest about cost, because it should shape how you use each tool. Tap to Pay, QR code donations and payment links are all card-based transactions. They're wonderfully convenient, but card interchange still applies to every one of them — so treat them as operational tools that remove friction, not as a way to dodge card costs. PayID is the exception: it runs on Australia's New Payments Platform and moves money directly between bank accounts, so it carries no card interchange fee at all. When a supporter wants to make a substantial one-off gift during a doorknock or a workplace appeal, pointing them to PayID keeps more of their donation with your cause.
A team of volunteers needs infrastructure, not just a reader
Australian charities run on people. The ACNC's most recent Australian Charities Report found the sector engaged around 3.9 million volunteers — the largest number ever recorded. When dozens or hundreds of those volunteers are out collecting at once, the question stops being "can we take a card?" and becomes "can we see what the whole team is raising, right now?"
This is where a payment gadget and payment infrastructure part ways. Pebl was built as mobile payment infrastructure for teams and multi-location organisations — Tap to Pay, QR codes, payment links and PayID are features of the platform, not the product itself. Because Pebl came from payments first and added software on top, a fundraising coordinator can watch donations land in real time, see which collector raised what, and reconcile a whole street appeal from one screen instead of counting tins at the end of the day. You can read more about how Pebl Collect works for fundraising teams.
Getting a contactless collection running
You don't need hardware, a merchant terminal or a long setup. A practical starting point:
- Choose which tools suit your collectors — Tap to Pay for footpath giving, a QR code on every tin and lanyard, and PayID for bigger pledges
- Load the app onto each volunteer's own phone so the team is ready in minutes, not weeks
- Brief volunteers so every conversation can end with an easy way to give, cash or not
- Watch totals live and thank donors quickly, while their goodwill is still fresh
Take your tin further
The collection tin isn't going anywhere — it just no longer has to be the only way to give. If you'd like to see how a contactless setup could work for your next appeal, explore the Pebl platform and start turning willing supporters into completed donations, wherever your team happens to be standing.
