Getting started with the Giving module
Purpose of the module
Welcome to the ChurchSuite Giving module! This module is designed to help organisations manage the donations they receive by any method and the givers who gave them. The Giving module also includes support for Gift Aid reclaims (for UK customers only) and Tax Deductible donations (North America). Through the Giving module, you can track levels of stewardship engagement, manage common admin workflows and communicate and report easily. This article is designed to provide your finance team with a broad overview of the Giving module's functionality and highlight key features that may be useful to them in their role and to your church.
We encourage you to read this article in full to familiarise yourself with the module's key features and customisation options available and to acquaint yourself with some of the basic concepts and terminology you'll see within the module and our other Giving module support articles.
Giving module features at a glance
- Create unlimited funds against which donations can be assigned
- Add new givers or import existing ones
- Giver profile pages with everything in one view
- Manage Gift Aid declarations (the UK only), upload scanned declarations and store electronically-signed declarations added by a giver through the member-facing My ChurchSuite
- Categorize and group givers using Tags
- Record internal-only notes against givers
- Use Flows to process givers through your common admin workflows and receive reminders when tasks become due or overdue.
- Add or import donations (perhaps from a bank statement) individually or in batches - intuitive functionality that integrates seamlessly into your financial admin processes
- Receive one-off and recurring online donations by card and direct debit through ChurchSuite's online giving platform called "Donate"
- Pledge management functionality
- Process Gift Aid claims (the UK only) and submit online direct to HMRC, and handle overclaims and refunds
- Support for tax-deductible donations (North America, and some other non-UK customers)
- Communicate with givers by Email and SMS (sending in real-time or scheduling communications), or produce address labels
- Wide range of standard reports, or perform custom reporting using Smart Tags or the Table Generator
- Perform batch updates of information to multiple givers
- Archive givers that have moved on from your community, or set them active again if they return
- Module functionality designed with the GDPR best compliance and accounting standards in mind
- Givers linked to their Address Book profile can access the 'My ChurchSuite' member-facing platform - designed to promote community engagement, enable people to keep their details up to date, view all your communications in one place and communicate with one another. They can also view their historical donations, add pledges, add Gift Aid declarations (the UK only) and make online donations through ChurchSuite Donate
- 'Change logs' to help you stay on top of all the changes being made by your User or members
- Multi-site support - assign each giver to a site, perhaps where a "site" represents your different communities, projects or locations (e.g. different worshipping locations for church services, or different projects for a charity)
- Accessible through any browser or via the free iOS or Android "ChurchSuite" app
Next steps...
To explore many of the Giving module's features and functionality, you'll need to add or import some data. It's easy to do or the ChurchSuite Support team can import your data. See the related support articles at the end of this article for further details.
Got a question?
You’ll find the answers to most questions in our support articles - they're all available through the Support beacon located in the bottom-right corner of each page in the Giving module - just search by topic, phrase or keyword. You can also access the Support Article library on our website. And if you still can't find something you're looking for, click to get in touch with one of the ChurchSuite team - we’re happy to help!