Adding a new giver

Within the Giving module, each giver has a giver profile, from which you can manage their Details, Donations, whether they've signed Gift Aid Declarations (the UK only), their Pledges and Engagement. While those giving through ChurchSuite Donate (and who don't have an existing giver profile) will have a new profile added automatically, this article explains how a Giving module user can add a new giver profile.

Adding a new giver

Working in the Givers section of the module, click Add giver. Note also the option in Import givers - this is covered in our related support article.

On the Add giver pop-up, begin by choosing whether the new giver is In the Address Book - to search and select an existing Contact, which will auto-populate the giver's contact details from the Address Book details already held. An Address Book contact can only have one linked giver profile - it's not possible to link a contact to multiple giver profiles.

...or select Not In the Address Book, to manually add the giver's basic contact details. The giver's First Name and Last Name are required fields. All other contact detail fields are optional, although some may be later required for a valid Gift Aid claim (UK customers only). You can also set the giver's communication options, which determine whether the giver will Receive general emails and SMS authored by a user from within the Giving module.

For multi-site customers, select the giver's Site. For UK customers, Gift aid claims are site-specific - a site claim will include any claimable donations for givers belonging to the claim site. This ensures a giver's claimable donations are never included in multiple claims for different sites.

The Giver Reference is an internal-use field for identifying the giver within ChurchSuite. A unique giver reference number is auto-generated for each new giver, or you can overtype and specify a giver reference, perhaps based on a pre-existing numbering system that you use. The Giver Reference is a required field; it must be unique and be at least 3 characters in length to be searchable.

The Bank Reference is used to identify the giver when importing donations, perhaps from an imported bank statement. The statement reference in the import file is matched against your giver profiles to determine which giver each imported donation is assigned. Bank references should be unique to one giver profile only, otherwise an imported donation will be assigned to the first matching giver found. You can specify multiple bank references by comma-separating them - for example, where a giver gives from different bank accounts. If a giver's bank reference contains a comma character, be sure to enclose the reference in quotation marks so that the system can correctly distinguish multiple bank references. See our related support article for further information about "Adding or importing donations".

Continuing down the pop-up, optionally assign a giver to one or more Tags. As you type in the Tags field you can search and select from your existing Fixed Tags - see the related support article for further information about Fixed Tags.

Next, if the giver profile is to represent a couple, tick the Couple checkbox and, for UK customers only, specify the Gift Aid Split for the Giver and Spouse. The Couple option typically applies when a couple makes joint donations on behalf of their household as a couple, rather than making donations individually. If the giver profile being added is Not in the Address Book, the spouse's Name must be specified. If the giver profile is In the Address Book, the spouse's Name is auto-populated from the giver's linked contact spouse/partner name and cannot be edited. Note that it is not possible to create a Couple Giver for a contact in the Address Book whose partner is not also in the Address Book.

Click Save to complete the process and be redirected to the giver's profile page, which will show all the details just added. You can return to a giver's profile at any time in the future, perhaps to Edit and make changes. Notice also the options on a giver's profile to add Notes, to Communicate, and the Print statement option to print a statement of donations for the giver.

The newly-added giver is added to the Active section of the Givers list. Note the option to switch the View between Active and Archived givers. For multi-site customers, the list of givers shown is for the site/s being viewed - If you can't find the giver you are looking for, check that you are viewing the correct site or All Sites. From here, you can View, Edit, Archive or Delete a giver by using the giver Actions. An archived giver can be Set as active again. A deleted giver is permanently deleted and cannot be reinstated. Deleting a giver will delete all their historic donations, declarations (the UK only), pledges and all historic giver engagement. Deleting a giver will only delete the giver's profile, though, not the linked contact in the Address Book. Note, however, that it is only possible to delete a giver if they have no donations that are part of a Gift Aid claim.

Adding a giver to the Address Book

It's not uncommon for people to begin giving long before they fully connect with you. You may have Not in the Address Book givers that you will later want to add to the Address Book.

Where your data protection policy provides a lawful basis, or with consent from the giver, you can add an unlinked giver to the Address Book without re-entering all the contact information already held on their giver profile. This will be helpful if you wish to provide a new giver with My ChurchSuite access since My ChurchSuite invitations can only be sent to Address Book contacts. Here's how...

Before adding the giver as a new contact, you should first check the contact doesn't already exist in the Address Book, in which case you can Edit the giver and link them; otherwise select Add giver as contact from the More actions menu.

The Add giver as contact pop-up opens with the giver's existing details populated into the form. Work down the fields on the pop-up to add any further details known (with permission), including any required fields. Click Save to complete the process.

The profile is updated to reflect the giver is now linked to a contact In the Address Book.