A visitor walks through the doors of a historic Key West church on a Tuesday afternoon. They're moved by what they see. They want to leave something behind. And then — as happens more often than any pastor wants to admit — they realize they have no cash. They look around. There's no one at the door. No collection plate on a Tuesday. No obvious way to give.
That moment of generosity, the one that started with a spark and ended with a shrug, used to walk out the door and never come back.
Then the Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea put a Give 2 Nickels contactless device in its vestibule.
The visitor-giving gap is real — and measurable.
Cash isn't just declining. In everyday transactions, it's already gone for most people most of the time.
Pew Research Center found that roughly 41% of Americans made no cash purchases in a typical week, up from 24% in 2015. Federal Reserve data puts cash at an all-time-low 14% of U.S. transactions. For a church that depends on visitors dropping something in a box or a plate, that math is unforgiving.
A visitor walks through your church lobby on a Tuesday afternoon. They're moved by your mission. They want to give… no cash. They look around — no one to ask, no way to give. That moment of generosity? Gone. Forever.
— The everyday scenario every historic tourist church facesThe interesting part: the generosity itself hasn't gone anywhere. Fidelity Charitable's study of more than 3,200 donors found that 64% would like to give more. The barriers are practical, not spiritual.
Why Catholic parishes especially.
Catholic parishes have a particular reason to act. Per CARA (the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown), U.S. Catholics give roughly $9–$10 per household per week, and the average share of income Catholics give to their Church is about 1% — the lowest of any major denomination. Gallup finds weekly Mass attendance among Catholics has fallen from about 75% in 1955 to under 40% in recent years.
But the upside is unambiguous. The 2026 Ministry Brands/Parable Group parish report found that among Catholic parishes reporting increased giving, 49% credited growth to digital giving. And Catholic parishes offering digital wallets were 2.6x more likely to see increased generosity from donors ages 18–29.
The setting: a historic parish on a tourist itinerary.
The Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea is the oldest Catholic parish in South Florida and the oldest parish in the Archdiocese of Miami. The first parish church in Key West was dedicated on February 26, 1852, destroyed by arson in 1901, and rebuilt in 1905 as the American Victorian structure that stands today. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and on February 11, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI elevated it to a minor basilica.
The parish's champion for this project is its pastor and rector, Father Christopher Marino, V.F., who arrived in Key West in June 2024. Father Marino has embraced the parish's role as a destination for the whole community, reviving traditions and investing in modernization.
The backdrop is Key West itself. The island receives approximately one million visitors annually. The wider Florida Keys recorded over 4.45 million overnight trips in 2023 with visitor spending of approximately $3.5 billion. For a landmark church on that itinerary, visitors aren't incidental. They're a core constituency of potential givers.
The solution: a visible, frictionless tap.
Give 2 Nickels is a contactless, unattended tap-to-give device built by Key West-based Sales Sense Payments, a firm with more than 25 years of processing experience. It's led by founder Michael D. Krause, CPP (Certified Payments Professional, McGraw-Hill author, CMO of Give 2 Nickels and President of Sales Sense Payments) and John Clark, Chief Revenue Officer.
The device accepts Apple Pay, Google Pay, and any tap-to-pay card in about two seconds. It requires no app and no account. It runs 24/7 on Wi-Fi or cellular. There's no monthly fee and no contract (5% + $0.05 per transaction). And crucially, it takes no hidden "tips" from donors — every dollar the donor taps is the donor's intended gift.
The result at St. Mary Star of the Sea.
Placed in the Basilica's vestibule — visible to every visitor entering or leaving the historic church — the Give 2 Nickels device captured donations from Saturday visitors, tourists, and community members. Many of these givers never attended a Sunday service. Most would have left without giving.
Put $44 in context:
Against those numbers, a $44 average from spontaneous, unattended visitor giving is remarkable. It's money that, by definition, was not being collected before. Generosity that was quite literally walking out the door.
What this means for your parish.
The St. Mary deployment isn't a universal recipe — the parish benefits from unusually high-traffic, high-goodwill, tourist-heavy foot traffic. But the practical takeaways generalize:
1. Start where the foot traffic is. Place a single, highly visible device in the vestibule, narthex, or exit path — wherever visitors naturally pause. Visibility is the single biggest driver of use.
2. Make the ask, and make it specific. Pair the device with a short, mission-focused message and suggested amounts. Suggested amounts anchor giving and materially raise both participation and gift size.
3. Lead with the tourist and weekday opportunity. The device's unique value is capturing the generosity of people who will never be in a pew on Sunday. Treat it as net-new revenue, not a replacement for the offertory.
4. Measure against the right baseline. Compare device gifts to your prior visitor/candle-box cash income, not to committed members' pledges. The relevant question is how much visitor generosity you were leaving uncaptured.
5. Protect donor trust. Choose a provider with transparent, all-in pricing and no hidden donor tips. A guilt-free experience preserves the goodwill that motivated the gift in the first place.
6. Reassess at 90 days. If the average gift and total captured meaningfully exceed prior visitor cash income, expand to additional locations.
The complete 3-page PDF with all sources, benchmarks, and a full note on evidence — formatted for print and easy to share with your finance council.
⬇ Download the white paper (PDF)Ready to capture the generosity walking through your doors?
Give 2 Nickels removes every barrier between the impulse to give and the act of giving. One tap. A few seconds. No app, no account, no cash needed. 24/7, unattended.
Start Capturing Generosity → 📞 Call/Text Michael: (305) 723-GIVE (4483)A note on evidence: The $44 average and deployment results are first-party figures reported by Give 2 Nickels from its device dashboard for the St. Mary Star of the Sea installation; they have not been independently audited. Results vary by context — St. Mary's benefits from an unusually high-traffic, tourist-heavy setting. The 97% Church of England figure comes from early pilot reporting (BBC News, January 2019) promoted in part by the technology vendor and should be understood as pilot-stage results. The "three times cash" multiple is more consistently reported across independent dioceses.
Sources: Giving USA / Lilly Family School of Philanthropy · Church of England digital giving reporting · Pew Research Center · Gallup · Federal Reserve Diary of Consumer Payment Choice · Fidelity Charitable · 2026 Ministry Brands / Parable Group parish report · CARA (Georgetown) · Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea historical record · Monroe County / Florida Keys tourism data
More from Give 2 Nickels: The Generosity Gap: Why 89% of Donors Leave Without Giving · The Empty Offering Plate: Why Your Congregation Wants to Give But Can't