Is anyone using Optimized Contribution Forms and accepting Venmo?

​@Sally Heaven pining ​@vaish somanchi to chime in here! 

Thanks ​@Liz Ragland and ​@vaish somanchi! 

I’m asking because we’re trying to help one of our clients that is trying to accept Venmo on their Optimized Forms and they haven’t been able to get it to work. I’m wondering if their PayPal Business Account is actually not correctly configured to allow Venmo payments to process via Bonterra Payments.

In trying to troubleshoot this for them, it seems like I have learned that a nonprofit doesn’t actually need a Venmo account per se to accept Venmo on their Optimized Forms. Instead, they need a PayPal account that works, and the payment processing via “Venmo” on forms with Bonterra Payments is actually a donor clicking Venmo, being authorized/logged in, and then PayPal actually processing the money and putting it into the client’s PayPal account? Is that right? 

If that’s right, then I think my client needs to recheck their PayPal settings to make sure Venmo is listed as active in the Payment Methods section. Is that right? 

​@Sally Heaven You’re understanding of PayPayl/Venmo seems to be correct.

I wonder if what might be happening is that your client is on the older version of PayPal which doesn’t include Venmo. We have a newer PayPal integration that you can set up on the payment gateways page. This version will allow you to use Venmo and the older version can still remain for any existing sustainers.

​@vaish somanchi, thank you so much for the idea! The client set up this PayPal gateway self-serve on October 3, 2025. Did the newer version of the integration launch after then, or before?

​@Sally Heaven which client is this? (also feel free to email me if you’d prefer), I want to look into which version they are using. 

Thanks ​@vaish somanchi, I’ll email you.