Fundraising/Donations

Manage Campaigns

Fundraising is the process of collecting money as donations for a cause. Create multiple fundraising campaigns below e.g. raise funds for your theatre or another charity, the choice is yours. You can set as many campaigns as you like. When building events/activities, merchandise etc., you’ll be able to select all or choose particular campaign(s) to display. For example, if you had a charity fundraising ball, your fundraising campaign could be targeted to raise money for a cancer foundation.

Search options

Search for campaigns depending on whether they are ‘active complete’ (hit Save rather than Go Live), ‘active live’ which is currently live and people can donate, and ‘active off sale’, which means the campaign has run for a period and had an end date and is now off sale.

Tool Tip: When building a campaign, Press Save to save your campaign, not Go Live. You press Submit and Go Live when you want to go live by the start date/time entered or Cancel to cancel changes.

Create or Edit a campaign:

Follow the features below to create a campaign.

Private: Check the private flag to make your campaign not viewable online. Only those that have the direct link i.e. if you send via an email campaign, will be able to view and subsequently donate.

Campaign name: Enter a name for your campaign i.e. ABC Theatre raising funds for repair works. If you have multiple campaigns set up, the campaign name will appear in the drop-down list for selection and in all order confirmations etc.

Upload Page Header Image: Upload a banner that makes your campaign more visually appealing. This will appear at the top of the page when a customer makes a donation by direct link to the campaign online or through the backend, when clicking on sales and selecting the module Fundraising/Donations. Click to crop the image and upload. At any stage you can edit the banner.

Enter the name of the campaign that people will see in the header:  E.g. Donate to the ABC Theatre’s campaign to raise funds for rebuilding the theatre.

Campaign Description: Provide further details about the campaign by filling out the description to encourage people to make donations.  

Set the start date/time as to when people can start making donations? Set a date and time for the campaign to start. You can therefore set your campaign for right now or to start sometime in the future.

Set the end date/time as to when people can make donations until. Tip: You do not have to set a campaign end date.

Fundraising Goal Amount   How much do you want to raise?

Set a value that you would like to achieve, i.e. a target.  

Deactivate Campaign automatically once goal is reached?

You can elect to deactivate the campaign once the goal is reached or, alternatively, keep the campaign going. The campaign will then continue unless it has an end date. 

Display this Campaign for selection when creating

If you don’t intend to allow people to make donations as part of the module experiences, such as merchandise etc., click the (x) option against the module to remove it.  Campaigns will then be hidden from being viewable/selectable during the setup of that module.

Add General Ledger Account Code:

Select from an existing code or click Add General Ledger Account Code to create a new code. A general ledger account code is a numbered account you may use to keep track of financial transactions and to prepare financial reports. Each account is a unique record and allows you to pull a report recognised by the GL account code rather than the campaign name.  When adding a General Ledger Account Code, simply enter the account code and an internal description.

Would you like to change the current confirmation redirect set? If so where would you like to redirect people too once they make a donation?

Once the order has been processed, to where do you want to redirect your customers? Enter a message to redirect your customers (e.g.  Click here to see other campaigns you can donate to), followed by a URL.  Enter short description above the button can be used to as an added intro, such as “Now that you have donated”

Would you like to change the current confirmation redirect set? 

This refers to where customers/patrons are redirected to once an order has been processed. Select YES to enter further details.

Once a shopping cart payment has been processed, what default webpage do you want to redirect customers to?

Once the order has been processed, to where do you want to redirect your customers? Enter a message to redirect your customers (e.g.  Click here to see other campaigns you can donate to), followed by a URL.  Enter short description above the button can be used to as an added intro, such as “Now that you have donated”…

Fundraising Types:

You have a number of options when people make a donation.

Fundraising Amount: Are people allowed to enter their own fundraising amounts? If so, would you like to set a minimum value? This will then prevent them from making a donation that is of a lower value.

Suggested Values: This is a great option to implement. Create suggested values simply by entering the value and clicking on Add. You can add as many suggested values as you like. Once a suggested value is created, it cannot be edited but you can simply click the (x) option against the value and delete it. Examples of suggested values could be ($10), ($25), ($50), ($100) which will display to the customer/patron.

Donor Levels: Set donor levels such as Gold, Silver, Bronze and help recognise people for making donations that can often be sizeable. Donors can be recognised further by your organisation with special offers.  You can set an expiry date of these special benefits as a specific date or days from making the donation. Tip: to delete a donor level, this can only be done through your fundraising settings.

Round-up/percentage of cart options: This is a great option and only available as part of a ticket purchase. Rather than the customer selecting a donation value or other options available, offer people the ability to round up to the nearest (x) amount or by percentage e.g. 10%.  This could lead to a higher value being donated.

When people donate, select a confirmation email template that they will receive.

When a customer makes a donation, you can set the template they receive by email. This can be completely customised via Tools & Templates > Email/SMS Templates. You can also add a new template directly from here.  

Enter Fundraising Thank You message:  When people donate, this message will appear in their confirmation emails. It’s a great way of showing appreciation.

Documents or Files:

Attach additional documents or files?  Select from previously added documents under Tools & Templates >Documents or add a document here. This could be further information for the donor, such as tax considerations or a flyer, the choice is yours. 

Test Confirmation Email

Send test confirmation email? Enter one or more email addresses separated by a comma to see what a donor receives when they make a donation. It’s important to note that this is a test and does not contain specific campaign details. Rather, tags are used which would be replaced when an actual donation is made.  The email template allows you to see the format of the template.

Recent Additions

Monthly Recurring Donations

Recurring donations allow organisations to receive consistent contributions from donors on a monthly basis. You now have the power to increase your donor revenue.

How to Enable Monthly Donations

  • For Stripe as the Primary Payment Gateway:
    You can enable monthly donations directly in Donation Builder by creating a new donation campaign or editing an existing one.
  • For Other Primary Payment Gateways:
    If your primary payment gateway is not Stripe, you can still set up monthly donations via Stripe. Go to Finance Setup under the menu option “Recurring Donations Using Stripe” to configure it.
  • In this setup, all regular transactions will continue to be processed through your primary payment gateway, while only monthly recurring donations will be handled by Stripe for both backend and online sales.

Note: This is common for both stripe and non-stripe clients.

Note: Click here to access our full guide on Recurring (Monthly) Donations.

Dedicated Page for Recurring Donations

We have created a dedicated page detailing the setup and functionality of recurring donations. For in-depth guidance on setting up a Recurring Monthly Donation, please refer to our help file: Recurring Monthly Donations Guide.

New ‘Regular Donation Subscribers’ Report

We have introduced a new Regular Donation Subscribers report, available under: Reports > Module Reports > Regular Donation Subscribers

Filters and Data Display

  • Subscription Creation Date Range
    • Selecting ‘Last Month’ will generate a list of customers whose subscriptions were created in the past month.
    • This report does not display a list recurring payments made during this period—only when the subscription was initially created.
    • However, the report includes all transactions up to the generation date and time. For example, if a subscription was created on Nov 5, and it’s recurring payments on Dec 5, Jan 5, and Feb 5, all four transactions will be listed under “Number of Transactions Processed”, as a summation even if they fall outside the selected date range.
    • While recurring payments will be counted in the total, only the initial subscription details will be shown.
  • Donation and Fee Breakdown
    • The report provides a breakdown of the recurring donation amount, along with applicable transaction and donation fees.
    • The initial amount selected by the customer for their recurring donation is displayed.
  • Subscription Status
    • Indicates whether a subscription is Active, Inactive, or Paused.
  • Total Transactions & Donation Amount
    • The Number of Transactions Processed reflects the total number of transactions up to the report generation date.
    • The Total Donation Amount is the sum of all transactions processed at the initial amount, including:
      • The total transaction charge fee
      • The total payment fee for completed transactions
  • Payment Schedule
    • Last Run Date – The most recent payment date.
    • Next Run Date – When the next payment is due.
  • Payment Failures
    • Displays the number of failed payments since the subscription started.

Filtering Options

  • Campaign-Specific Data
    • To generate a report for a specific campaign, use the ‘Fundraising/Donations’ filter.
  • Subscription Status Filter
    • View customers by status: Active, Inactive, Paused, or All.

New ‘Regular Donation Payment Failure’ Report

The Regular Donation Payment Failure report provides detailed insights into payment failures for recurring donations. You can access it under: Reports > Finance Reports > Regular Donation Payment Failure

Report Details

  • Payment Failure Breakdown
    • Displays the number of failed payment attempts for each transaction.
    • Lists the first transaction number, which corresponds to the initial order.
  • Payment Date & Time
    • Shows the exact date and time when Stripe attempted to charge the customer.
  • Failure Reason
    • Indicates the specific reason for the payment failure, such as: Card Declined, Insufficient Funds, Other Processing Errors.

Donation Opt-Ins and Donation-Level Opt-In Settings

We have introduced opt-ins for donations to give you greater flexibility in managing customer preferences. Previously, when using organization-level opt-ins, standalone donation sales did not display any opt-in options. Now, even if you are using organization-level opt-ins without overriding them at the module level, you can select opt-ins during the donation sales process.

Note: When a donation is linked to an event, the donation opt-in will now appear under the Donation tab (since donations are added after the Customer tab during Online Sales).

Additionally, a new Marketing menu has been added in the donation build, allowing you to choose which opt-ins are associated with each donation. This functions in the same way as opt-ins for events, making the experience consistent across modules.

Reporting Updates:
Donation opt-ins are now included in the following reports:

  • Customer Evaluation Report
  • Primary Marketing Report
  • Promoter Opt-In Report

New Image Field in Donation Build

We have introduced a new image field in the donation build to replace the previous rectangular donation image, making it consistent with other modules that use square images. This image field will be available under the Fundraising Main Image section. You can still use the header image, but the fundraising main image will now take precedence over the banner image in the online listing page.

Regular Donation Platform Customisation

Any regular donations currently available will use the overall platform customisations applied to your donation page. Additionally, under the Donation tab in Platform Customisation, you can update and manage all components specifically for the Regular Donation module.

Donation Terms and Conditions

  • Previously, when selecting Terms and Conditions on the order checkout page, the field was returning blank even if Terms and Conditions were saved at the Organization level. This has now been fixed.

Donation-Specific Terms and Conditions

  • We’ve introduced a new option: “Do you want to modify the Terms and Conditions for this donation build?”
  • This allows you to include donation-specific Terms and Conditions in addition to those saved at the Organization level. If both are used, the Organization-level Terms and Conditions will be displayed along with the donation-specific ones. If the Organization-level Terms and Conditions are removed here, only the donation-specific Terms and Conditions will be shown. Whatever is configured in the Donation build will appear in Online Sales, and if the Terms and Conditions tag has been set, it will also be included in the confirmation email and the donation email.
  • This feature is available for both new and existing donations.

Donation Email Settings

  • A new question has been added: “Would you like to send both a confirmation email as well as a donation email?”
  • For existing donation modules, the default answer is set to Yes.
  • If selected:
    • Standalone donations will generate both a confirmation email and a thank you for your donation email.
  • If not selected:
    • Customers will only receive the thank you for your donation email.
  • Important Note:
    • If the donation is made alongside another item (e.g., an event ticket), the customer will still receive a confirmation email.
    • The above question only applies to standalone donations.

 Donation Campaign Email Option

The Send Confirmation Email setting within Manage Donation Campaigns has been extended.

When this option is disabled:

  • The confirmation email dropdown is hidden.
  • No confirmation email is sent when a donation campaign purchase is completed.