If people give your organization money, your site can take it: a donation page with suggested amounts, an appeal with a goal, gifts given by card or recorded from a check, monthly giving, pledges paid off over a year, and one statement per donor at the end of it. This note covers setting that up and looking after it. If you have not opened the tool before, How to make edits on an Avistra website shows the sign-in.
Donations show people's names and what they gave, so everything here needs your passkey. How to set up a passkey on an Avistra website walks through it.
What is where
Choose Dashboard in the bar in the lower right, then Donations on the left. Its own list has three parts.
- Giving: Overview, Gifts, Regular gifts and, once you have any, Pledges.
- Raising: Appeals and Funds.
- Set up: Donor reports, Year-end statements and Settings.
Overview is the year so far, this month, what regular giving brings in a month, and what is pledged but not yet paid, with any appeal's goal bar under it and the latest gifts below that. Needs doing appears when something is waiting on you: a regular gift whose card failed, a pledge payment that is overdue, or the reminder in January that statements are due.
Funds and appeals
They are different things, and the difference matters.
- A fund is where the money is for: General, the building, the scholarship. It is how you account for a gift. A fund can be one donors may choose on the donation page, or Records only, for your books.
- An appeal is a push: the greenhouse appeal, the year-end appeal. It belongs to a fund, it can have a goal and an end date, and it has a page of its own with its own story and picture.
New appeal asks for the name, the fund, the goal, when it starts and ends, and then its page: the address, a picture, the story, the suggested amounts, whether any amount is allowed, whether monthly giving is offered, whether the goal bar and the number of people who have given are shown, and the thank-you message. You can also offer the appeal on the joining and renewal forms, and at event checkout.
The goal bar shows what has been given and, beside it, what has been pledged but not yet paid, so it is never a promise counted as money in the bank.
Gifts
Gifts is every gift, with chips for All, One-off, From regular gifts and Pledge payments, and filters for the fund, the appeal, a date range, how it came and gifts over an amount.
A gift opens to show the amount, the donor, the fund and appeal, any dedication, how it was paid, its receipt, and where it came from if it is part of a regular gift or a pledge. You can Change fund or appeal with a reason, which is kept, and refund it through Payments.
Record a gift is for money that did not come through the site: a check, cash, a bank transfer, or something that is not money at all. Say who gave it, how much, when it arrived, the fund, and whether to email them a receipt. A gift that is not money is recorded by description only; no value is stated for it, which is what the tax rules expect.
Anonymous unless they say otherwise
A donor's name is never shown on your site unless they tick that you may. Admins always see who gave what; the public side shows a first name only for people who agreed, and never an amount.
Regular gifts
Somebody who gives monthly has a regular gift: their amount, their fund, when it started and when the next one is due. You can change the amount, pause it, stop it, or send them a link to update their card. Nobody at your organization ever types a card number, and a card that fails shows up in Needs doing with a note to the donor.
Pledges
A pledge is a promise to give, paid off over time. New pledge takes who, the total, the fund or appeal, and how they will pay: in instalments of an amount every month, quarter or year; by a date; or whenever they can. Then either they pay automatically by card, from a link the tool sends them, or they send payments and the tool reminds them a few days before each one is due.
The pledge record shows what has been paid against what was promised, and every scheduled payment. A payment two weeks overdue marks the pledge Behind. Write off the rest closes a pledge at what was actually given, and stops the unpaid part counting toward an appeal's goal.
Year-end statements
One letter per donor beats a receipt per gift. Year-end statements takes a year, tells you how many people gave in it and how many have an email address, and sends each of them a statement: your organization's details and tax number, their name and address, every gift with its date, fund, amount and receipt number, the total, and your tax wording from Settings. Anybody without an email address is printed instead, one page each. Gifts that were not money are listed separately, by description and date, with no value.
Settings
- Donation page: its address, the default fund, the suggested amounts, whether any amount is allowed and the smallest one, whether monthly and yearly giving are offered, and whether donors may add a few percent so the card fee does not come out of their gift.
- Receipts: your tax status line, the "no goods or services were provided" line, and the wording for gifts that are not money.
- The thank-you emails are not here: they sit in Email, then Automatic emails, in the Donations group. The receipt, a regular gift started, a card that failed, a pledge reminder, a dedication notice and the year-end statement, each one reworded in your own words.
- Tell me about gifts over an amount, to whichever addresses you name.
Card gifts run through your own Stripe account, so taking them online needs one connected: How to connect your Stripe account with Avistra. Recording checks and cash needs nothing.
Who can do what
Finance and full admins see gifts and donors and record them. Refunds are through Payments, and are Finance and full admins only. Everything is audited without a donor's details.
If you get stuck
Send it to us. Choose Support request in the bar and say what you need: an appeal page to set up, a statement that looks wrong, a pledge that does not add up. How to submit a support request on an Avistra website shows how.