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 or Tap to Donate for prospective givers to give to and which are not visible, i.e. internal use only.

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 on Using brands. Once you have added additional brands, you can assign a brand to a fund, which is sported on the public-facing Fund page and the fund-related confirmation emails sent when an online donation is made.

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.

Next, set the fund visibility options for Donate and Tap to Donate.

• When Show in Donate is enabled, you can set whether the fund can receive one-off and recurring, one-off-only or recurring-only donations through Donate. For example, you may only want givers to make one-off donations for a particular fund rather than ongoing recurring donations created as a pledge. UK customers can optionally set the fund's Gift Aid status as Not claimable, meaning that those making an online donation to the fund will not be offered the opportunity to Gift Aid their donations - ideal, where the cause is not eligible for Gift Aid. In that scenario, the donations are added with a 'Gift Aid Override' status to ensure those donations are excluded from a subsequent Gift Aid claim. These two settings only affect online donations to the Fund made through Donate and do not apply to fund donations made through Tap to Donate or those added or imported to the Giving module for the fund by a User.
• When Show in Tap to Donate is enabled, you can set preferred preset Amounts for those making tap donations through the app. Note that up to four preset amounts can be specified.

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 round-color: initial;">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 sports the emblem and colour of the fund Brand (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 by selecting 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 in a page on your website.

Returning to the Funds section of the module you can easily distinguish fund Visibility in Donate and Tap to Donate and distinguish 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, in Tap to Donate 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.

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.

Top Tip! Promoting your funds through a QR Code

You can promote certain funds by sharing the fund QR Code on printed publicity materials and announcement slides at your in-person events and gatherings. Prospective givers simply scan the QR Code with their smartphone camera to access the fund page and make a donation. The fund QR Code is found on the More actions for the fund:

In your device browser, right-click and copy or save the image. You can now add that QR Code image to your printed publicity materials and announcement slides.

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.