of woven baskets are often referred to as collection baskets.
An offering plate is brought to a member during a religious service by an usher or circulated among members of a congregation. A member of the congregation then drops a donation onto the offering plate. A donation is most often in the form of cash or check. Frequently, donations contained within an offering plate are then deposited into a larger donation container. The larger container is then taken from the religious service for off-site processing. Off-site processing includes tallying individual donations, and crediting an individual donation to the account of a particular member of the congregation for tax purposes or for determining if the member is meeting a personal donation quota or a donation quota for the congregation. Amillion plus members of religious organizations in the United States, (Source: Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 1992 Edition), hundreds of millions of members worldwide, and well over 380,000 religious organizations in the United States and Canada, and an even more substantial number of religious organizations worldwide.
The present invention serves this market by providing an offering plate and offering plate system that offers convenience of use and ease of operation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will accept a cash donation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will associate a cash donation with an account of a member of a religious organization and credit that member's account accordingly.
It is yet another object of