Understand Funds and Fund Types

When creating a fund on behalf of a constituent, they become the champion of that fund. To set up the fund, you'll need to enter the fund's name and basic information (which the champion can edit later), as well as the champion's biographical and contact information, and any seed gift and registration fee they have provided.

You can designate that constituents create:

  • Honorary Fund: To honor a loved one by name (Honoree), with email notifications sent to the constituent when gifts are made.

  • Memorial Fund: To pay tribute to a loved one who has passed away, with a designated next of kin receiving email notifications when gifts are made.

  • Personal Fund: To acknowledge a personal commitment to your mission.

You can also make the fund private, meaning it will not appear in fund searches and lists and can only be accessed by people with the link. This is useful if the fund champion wants to customize the fund page before accepting donations.

When you create a fund, a personal web page (referred to as a fund page) is automatically generated. Fund champions can use this page to share their personal story with text and pictures, encouraging family and friends to make donations. You have access to these fund pages to edit or disable them if there are complaints about objectionable material.

Additionally, the pages may include a Guest Book for visitors and donors to sign with their names and comments. You can edit the Guest Book instructions and delete entries on behalf of the fund champions. To prevent unauthorized software applications (like SPAM-bots) from accessing the Guest Book, you can enable a CAPTCHA option that requires visitors to enter a special character sequence to verify they are human.

After creating a fund, the system will send the champion an autoresponder email thanking them, providing their login information, and directing them to the Champion Center. Here, they can customize their fund page, send emails appealing for support, and more. If the Page Approval feature is enabled, any changes to a fund page must be approved before being published on your site.

You can also record any cash or check gifts collected offline directly in the appropriate fund's Donation List and confirm the gifts when your organization receives them.