Church people know damn well how money works- if they didn't, their parish would be in debt and everyone there would be driving luxury cars an wearing expensive clothes. They're trying to get you to reduce the price or donate, out of some assumed reverence to the church, BECAUSE it's a church. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked for a discount saying "It's for the church, you understand", I would have retired already. The people who are on the committee for a system upgrade I'm looking into have said "...and the church doesn't have any money" several times, but being a Catholic church, that's a load- they're the single wealthiest organization on the planet.

Dickering is as old as mankind and in some cultures, the people are offended if a buyer doesn't ask for a better price.

I did some AV work for a bar- if you want to get stiffed, do more of that. I went to the bar where the former bar owner was working to collect some money (he lost the location because the owner sold the building- I'll call him 'FBO'). When I walked in, a liquor rep (Dave) was there with some other people he and the FBO know. I have known the rep for over 45 years and the FBO for over 35 years; as we all talked, the topic of the FBO's bill to the rep came up and as usual, FBO didn't have the money, but said he could pay a few bucks of the bill (the total was something like $145.48). He told the rep he could have it the next day- Dave said it was no problem and left it at that. One of their mutual friends then said "If you're not going to at least take the 48 cents, I won't be able to believe you're actually Jewish". I don't think I have seen Dave laugh so hard in the whole time we have known each other.