Managing funds in the Giving module
You can add and manage Funds to distinguish the various causes that you collect donations for, perhaps distinguishing regular giving from special offerings or the other projects and causes that you administer. Funds can also be used to distinguish restricted donations and those designated for a specific purpose, or funds relating to different sites or locations. There's no limit to the number of funds you can add. You can even designate which funds are visible in Donate for prospective givers to give to and which are not visible i.e. internal use only.
In this article
Adding funds
Using custom giving links to a fund page
Fund reporting
Adding funds
Working within the Funds section of the Giving module click Add fund.
On the Add fund pop-up, enter a fund Name, such as "General Church Fund" or "Building Project" and choose a Colour, which is used to help visually distinguish each fund's donations throughout the Giving module, including on reports and also in the My Giving section within My ChurchSuite. Optionally assign a Brand - see the related support article for creating custom brands. Once you have added additional brands, you'll be able to assign a brand to a fund, which will be sported on the public-facing Fund page and any branded fund-related confirmation emails sent when an online donation is made for the fund.
For North American and Australian customers only, you can set the default Tax Deductible status for donations to the fund - you can override this fund default when adding or editing individual donations.
Top Tip - fund naming convention
If you're using ChurchSuite Donate to receive online donations, it will be helpful to avoid using fund names like "Regular Giving", as this may confuse givers who wish to make one-off donations to the fund; the user experience in ChurchSuite Donate would show Giving a one-off donation of X to Regular Giving, which may seem contradictory in the context. Avoid confusion by choosing fund names that make clear the fund's purpose and use, refraining from abbreviations and acronyms that may not be understood by all your prospective givers.
Continuing down the Add fund pop-up, set the Donate settings. The Visibility setting for Show in Donate determines whether this fund is to be visible in your ChurchSuite "Donate" online giving platform and also in My ChurchSuite when a giver is adding a pledge or Gift Aid declaration (UK customers only). In this way it's possible to create funds that are not visible within Donate and My ChurchSuite but which Users can still assign donations to from within the Giving module e.g. designated funds. You can also select whether the fund can receive One-off and recurring online donations, One-Off only donations, or Recurring only donations. For example, there may be instances where, for a particular giving campaign, you only wish givers to make one-off online donations, rather than an ongoing pledge to support the fund. These two settings only affect online donations made through "Donate", and don't affect donations added or imported to the Giving module for the fund by a User.
UK customers only can optionally set the fund's Gift Aid status as Not claimable - meaning that those giving online will not be offered the opportunity to 'Gift Aid' their donations - ideal where the cause is not eligible for Gift Aid - the online donations will be added with a 'Gift Aid Override' status to ensure those donations are excluded from a subsequent Gift Aid claim.
Top Tip - Share custom giving links to a fund page
Each fund has a Fund Page - a customised version of Donate that's locked down to just that fund. Sharing the Fund Page URL is a great way of raising funds for a specific cause, without prospective givers having to choose the fund when making their donation.
The Fund Page is always accessible for Active funds through the Fund Page URL, even if Show in Donate is not enabled for the Fund. In this way, you can add funds that are not listed in Donate but for those to whom you share the Fund Page URL in your communications, people can still give online to that particular fund through the Fund Page. Simply click Go to fund page and copy the fund page URL from your browser.
Click Save to add the new fund. From the fund "View" page, optionally add a fund Description - the description is surfaced on the public-facing Fund Page.
You can also optionally upload a fund Image. Click the fund image avatar and click Edit to open the image uploader. Drag and drop a suitably-prepared image into the uploader drop zone, or click to browse and select an image.
Finally, you can add a custom message to the fund Confirmation Email. The confirmation includes full details of the donation made and is always sent to the giver each time a recurring donation pledge is processed and each time they make a one-off donation. However, you can add a custom message to which the 'system' confirmation content is appended. In this way, you can communicate a fund-specific thank you message and provide givers with the equivalent of an email receipt for their donation. Click to Edit the confirmation email...
Sent fund confirmations are recorded in the giver's Communication log on their giver profile page. You can optionally use Merge Fields to add a personalised touch to your message. The confirmation email is sent using the branded slimline template and follows the default logo/emblem/colour of your organisation's branding (specified in Administrator > Profile) or that of the fund's Brand if one has been assigned for the fund (see the earlier section). Click Save.
You can return to the fund "View" page at any time if you need to Edit the fund to make changes, or to Archive or Delete a fund. From here you can preview the fund page - select Go to fund page.
You can copy the Fund page URL from your browser into your email communications, share it on social media, or embed the link to a page on your website.
Returning to the Funds section of the module you can easily distinguish fund Visibility in Donate, and funds that are Claimable for Gift Aid (UK customers only). You can also re-order funds, perhaps to have your most commonly-used funds first on the list. The fund Order is respected in Donate on the drop-down Fund selector, and also within the Giving module when Users add donations. Click any of the Order icons to open the Order pop-up.
Fund Actions enable easy access to View, Edit, Archive or Delete a fund. You can also switch between viewing Active and Archived funds. Note that you cannot delete a fund that has active or deleted donations linked to the fund; however, funds can be archived and later Set as active again if needed.
Top Tip! Using a QR Code
QR codes allow your Givers and potential givers to head straight to the fund page from their device, simply by scanning the fund page's unique QR code with their camera. You can add the QR code to your Sunday Service notice slides, paste them into your weekly email to your contacts, add them to printed publicity and use them on your Facebook page or Twitter feed - the possibilities are (almost) endless!
All you need to do is access the code via the More menu:
...and then copy the image or save it to your own device - right-click on the image to access the options:
Fund reporting
In the Giving module Reports section, the Donation Total and Gift Aid Donations reports include a helpful fund Summary at the top of the report. These summaries will be especially helpful when producing reports for accounting journal purposes, ensuring each fund's donations and the associated Gift Aid and online giving transactions fees are posted to the appropriate nominal ledger account.
Also, from a fund View in the Funds section of the module, a visual summary of fund progress shows recent donations on a month-by-month basis.
