Alumnae Association Banking

[SigDelt91]

My best friend and I have been trying to start an alumnae association for our sorority for almost 2 years now. We got in touch with someone from our national office about a year and a half ago to ask for some guidance, and we were told that for our sorority, alumnae groups are entirely autonomous. When we asked about paying for events or supplies for events, we were told to use PayPal and Venmo. We haven't had any funds until recently, so that wasn't an issue until now. In the last few months, we've had alumnae give us donations or express interest in making donations. However, some of these alumnae don't use banking apps or don't want to write a check to a person they don't know or trust to handle the money responsibly. We wanted to open a bank account for the alumnae association but we're not sure where to start or what we need to do. I'm going to a local bank over the weekend to try to get some answers, but I was wondering if anyone had insight or had set up a bank account for their alumnae/alumni organization. Thank you in advance for your help!