Optimized Donation Forms

Optimized Donation Forms provide an engaging and streamlined donor experience with continuously refined data and branding cards. Branding cards help build trust with donors using images you choose that represent your organization. To learn how to create branding cards, see Get Started with Branding Cards.

Create form

From Online Giving, select New donation form, Optimized form. Under Donation, Form name and branding enter a name for the form.

Branding card

Select the appropriate branding card that will engage donors and build credibility and trust to your cause. The form has a default branding card that you can customize or add your own. They can include a call to action and goal meter. If the branding card has a goal meter, you can set the form's fundraising goal and start date under Goal meter. To learn how to design a card, see Get Started with Branding Cards.

Set gift range

By default, one-time and monthly recurring gift options always display on the form. To increase the amount donors give, under Ask amounts, enter the lowest and highest one-time and recurring gift amounts you expect to receive.

Set designations

Donations are assigned to a specific designation that represents their financial purpose. Select the designations for the form under Designation. To present a default selection to donors, select a designation under Default designation.

Note: In Raiser's Edge NXT, designations are known as funds.

When you add multiple designations to the form, you can change their display names and move them to an order you prefer.

• To change their display names, under Designation list, select Set labels. Enter a new display name for each designation you want to relabel.

  Tip: The default designation's label is Area of greatest need, but you can change the label if you prefer.

• To change their order, Designation list, select Set order. Using the arrows, drag and drop each designation in the order you prefer.

To learn more about designations in your CRM, see:

• Funds in Raiser's Edge NXT

• Designations in Blackbaud CRM

• Designations in Altru

Tip: To learn how to pass designations through your forms, see Get Started with Hyperlink Parameters

Enable comments

To enable donors to add more information about their gift, select Comments under Additional options. Donor-entered comments display on the gift record.

Set gift processing

Optimized Forms connect to a live payment configuration in your organization's Blackbaud Merchant Services account.

If your organization has one Blackbaud Merchant Services account with only one payment configuration, the form automatically connects to your configuration. If you have multiple accounts or configurations, you can select a payment configuration under Payment and fees, Gift processing.

Direct debit

To enable donors to give one-time gifts using direct debit, select Enable direct debit, under Gift processing.

Note: Direct debit is only available if you use Raiser's Edge NXT.

Set transaction processing

After you configure the form, you can test it to ensure it's easy to use and not confusing to donors. By default, the form is in test mode. Under Transaction processing, you can choose to create one-time gift test records while testing it.

Warning: Only select Start processing donations now after testing the form because you can't switch the form back to test mode or use test credit card numbers.

For information, see Test form.

Set fee coverage

To bring more revenue to your mission, configure the form so your donors or Blackbaud covers the online transaction fees. Under Fee coverage, select how your organization will cover fees for donations given through this form. For more information, see Fee Coverage.

Add phone and mailing address

Profile fields let you collect more information, and they are optional for donors to complete after they make their donation. Under Profile fields, you can select Phone and Mailing address.

Add an appeal and campaign

Under Hidden fields, you can add an appeal and a campaign to track a specific fundraising initiative. This information automatically writes to gift records.

Note: Campaigns are only available if you use Raiser's Edge NXT.

Review and edit confirmations

Under Confirmations, you can configure what happens after donors make their donation.

Thank you message

After a donor submits the form, this page and its content appear. Its intent is to thank donors for their donations and confirm that their donations were successful. If you choose to use the default content selection, it contains the donor's name and their gift amount. If you choose to redirect donors to a webpage on your organization's website, you can include calls to action.

Thank you email

After a donor submits the form, the email is sent to confirm their donation with transaction details. The email contains a default message and personalization. You can edit the subject line, the message, and reply-to and from names and email addresses.

Warning: This email is not a receipt. To issue receipts use your CRM system or current receipt workflow.

To edit the email message:

1. From Confirmations, select Open email designer.

2. Hover over the message, and select Edit.

3. In the text editor, make any changes you need.

4. To make personalized changes, select Merge, Donation Forms, and choose the fields you want to add.

5. Select Apply.

   Tip: If you update the content of the email, you can re-insert merge fields, such as transaction details, from Merge, Donation Forms in the text field.

To learn how to design your email, see Thank You Email.

Send staff notifications

To notify staff when donors submit gifts through the form, enter up to 10 email addresses under Confirmations, Donation notification. In addition, if you don't want to notify staff for every donation made through the form, you can set the minimum gift amount. For example, set the amount to $100, and notifications will only be sent for donations equal to or greater than $100.

Send receipts

If you use Raiser's Edge NXT receipt management, you can enable emailed receipts. After approving donations in a gift batch in Raiser's Edge NXT, receipts automatically send to donors.

1. Under Receipt, select which gift types you want to enable receipts for.

2. Select an email receipt template for each gift type. For more information, see Raiser's Edge NXT - Email receipt templates.

3. Select a receipt series for the receipts. For more information, see Raiser's Edge NXT - Receipt series.