During the "Optimise Your Online Giving with the Right Donation Form" webinar, we noticed many themes emerge in the Q&A—so we created a blog post to help answer them. Read on!
Thanks to everyone who joined us for the recent “Optimise Your Online Giving with the Right Donation Form” webinar for Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT® customers in Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific regions. We appreciated your engagement and enthusiasm for the new Standard Donation Forms. We noticed some themes emerging in the chat and Q&A and wanted to share feedback widely to help you all adopt the right donation form!
Let’s begin with some resources:
In this blog post, we will cover some specific questions/themes that came up in the Q&A of the webinar:
"Are the standard donation forms available in my region/in my product?"
The standard donation forms are now available for all Raiser’s Edge NXT customers across regions—US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific. Optimised Donation Forms are now released in the US and are anticipated to release for regions outside the US in the second half of 2024. To access standard donation forms in web view, select Tools > Donation Form Designer (or choose Online Giving from the app menu for some customers). For more information, see Online Giving help.
"How much does the standard donation form cost?”
It’s included in your Raiser’s Edge NXT subscription at no extra cost!
"Do I have to use Blackbaud Merchant Services™? What payment features are available in my region?"
The standard donation forms integrate exclusively with Blackbaud Merchant Services. All regions have access to Apple Pay, PayPal, and click-to-pay options, in addition to credit card processing. Direct debit has not yet been released for Raiser’s Edge NXT customers in Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific regions.
"What are the fee coverage options?"
To help you raise more, you can configure donation forms to give supporters the option to cover your organisation's online transaction fees during checkout through donor cover and Complete Cover™. Read more on fee coverage options here.
When Complete Cover™ is enabled, Blackbaud Merchant Services waives the processing fees for online transactions up to 3,000 in the donor’s currency. In exchange, we ask supporters to give toward Blackbaud's service. The donor can give from 0 to 100% of the donation amount.
Donor cover lets donors pay the processing fee for their transaction. When donor cover is enabled, Blackbaud Merchant Services automatically calculates the fee based on the payment method and adds it to the gift amount. Donor cover participation is optional.
"What is credit card updater?"
Credit Card Updater helps you avoid disruptions in recurring giving by keeping your supporters' credit card info — such as card numbers and expiration dates — up to date. It's available for all Blackbaud Merchant Services accounts. Learn more here.
"What is the process to issue tax receipts for donations received through the standard donation forms?"
Gifts received through standard donation forms flow into a web view gift management batch that must be approved before a tax receipt is automatically issued by email. Check out this blog post for details. Attend future product update briefings to stay up to date on future functionality releases and improvements.
"Can we edit the PDF receipt template?"
PDF Receipt Templates allow your organisation to edit the logo and signature that appears on the receipt. Your organisation controls which donation forms are configured for tax receipts.
"Can we turn off receipting for certain donation forms? If a fee coverage option is chosen, what portion will be receipted?"
Fee coverage tax receipting: For donor cover, the tax receipt is for the full contribution amount (gift amount + fee coverage amount). For Complete Cover, the tax receipt is for the gift amount only.
"How are consolidated receipts issued (for recurring gifts)?"
Consolidated receipting functionality is not yet available in Raiser’s Edge NXT web view. Your organisation should continue with your existing practices, i.e., database view, partner options, etc.
Key Resources: "What customisation options are available with the Standard Donation Forms?"
With Standard Donation Forms, you can match the colours and fonts to your organisation’s branding, as well as change the look and feel of the form by adding, configuring, removing, and styling fields, such as headers and gift options.
"Can we have one form with different copy for each appeal?"
To change copy for different campaigns, create a new donation form. Learn more about Editing form fields and style here.
"How can we track goals and analyse results?”
To track fundraising goals, goal meters are website components that display the progress of a fundraising goal and update dynamically as you receive gifts. You can customise the goal meter's style to match your website. After you embed it on your website, any future changes you make to the styling or goal amount update automatically.
When you are ready to share the form with the public, you can embed it on a webpage (compatible with most websites), publish its URL, or download its QR code. After you embed the code, all edits you make to the form automatically update the embedded content. For those seeking shortened URLs, the best practice is to embed the form on your website so that you are using your website domain. If shortened URLs are needed, there are external link shortener tools you can use.
Parameters let you pass designations, appeals, and campaigns through a donation form without adding them to the form’s configuration.
With Google Analytics you can collect data from your donation forms to create reports that provide insights for your organisation. You can also view performance information related to your form such as recurring gift upsell performance, total gift amount, total gifts over time, and to performing forms.
"Can we include 'Other' as a fund with a free text field?"
The standard donation form does not currently support the ability for a donor to write in their own fund through the fund selector. We recommend adding the “Comments” field into your form, placing it underneath the fund selector and relabeling it to instruct donors to enter alternative fund names in the free text area.
"Can we choose which funds are included as options?"
Donations are assigned to a specific designation that represents their financial purpose. To let donors choose from multiple designations, you can add more than one to a form in the Designations field and make a default selection in the Default designation field. To let donors split their gift between more than one designation, select Enable donors to split gifts between designations.
"Is there a fund search capability?”
The Designation Search Designer website component displays a list of designations that a donor can search through and donate to directly. You can customise the style of the designation names and donate buttons to match your website. The donate button will redirect donors to a hosted URL where they can complete their donation through a donation form you select.
"For recurring gifts, what date options does the donor have?"
When designing a Standard Donation Form, you can choose the gift types to include. To select the gift types for the form, under Get started, select Enable one-time gifts" and Enable recurring gifts." You can choose between recurring gift frequencies: weekly, every two weeks, every four weeks, monthly, quarterly, or annually, and you can also choose whether a donor can enter an end date.
"Can we control the starting gift date?"
For recurring gifts, you can select whether the first payment processes when the donor submits the form or on a date the donor selects. First recurring gift payments process immediately upon form submission IF the start date is set to today. If the start date is in the future, and for all future recurring gift payments, they are automatically charged on the day scheduled and will land in batch—already charged.
"Can we convert recurring gifts from database view?"
A recurring gift created in the database view requires manual payment processing. To save time and eliminate the need to manually process payments, you can convert it to an automatic recurring gift in the web view if it is:
To migrate gifts from other solutions to Raiser’s Edge NXT, please contact your account executive or customer success manager for more information.
"For tribute gifts, can a donor send an e-card from the donation form? Is there an acknowledgment letter option?”
To give donors an opportunity to dedicate their gift to a person or cause, move the Tribute component to your forms. Gifts from donation forms are placed into unapproved batches in Fundraising, Gift Management in web view. When you approve a batch, you can view tribute information from the Tribute tab on the gift batch record.
To manage tributes, such as to associate a gift with a different honouree or notify recipients about gifts, return to the database view and follow your existing processes; eCard functionality is not yet available for standard donation forms.
Thank-you message: After a donor submits the form, this page appears. 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 organisation'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 personalisation. You can edit the subject line, the message, and reply-to and from names and email addresses. Note: the thank-you email is not the tax receipt; the tax receipt is issued by email after the web view gift batch is approved. Learn more about configuring your thank-you email here.
"How are consent preferences handled?”
You can add consent options to your forms and let donors choose specific communications they're interested in receiving from your organisation. For more information, see Raiser's Edge NXT - Consent.
If you configured consent business rules in the database view, solicit codes are updated automatically on constituent records when consent records are added. To learn more, see Configure Consent Business Rules.
If a donor has previously opted out and opts in through the donation form, they will be opted back into your communications.
"Are there any tools to help minimise duplicates?”
When someone completes a donation or registration form in Raiser's Edge NXT® on behalf of themselves or an organisation, it uses the constituent information to search for an existing constituent record to update before it creates a new one. This reduces the number of duplicate records and saves you time, so you don't need to manually review new constituents as potential duplicates. Read more about automatic constituent matching here. You can also configure the field mapping from standard donation forms. Read more on Raiser’s Edge NXT connection field mapping here.
A new online data review tool is coming in Q2 that will allow you to review constituent matches and any profile updates prior to any changes occurring to constituent records.
"Do Standard Donation Forms have multilingual capabilities?”
Standard Donation Forms are currently available in English only.
"How do I use QR codes? Are there QR code transaction performance metrics?”
To direct donors to a form from printed materials, during the Publish Form step, select Download QR code under Hosted URL. Next, add the QR code to printed materials, such as brochures and posters. There are no additional analytics available.
"Can we configure donation notifications? Can we have different notifications based on specific criteria?”
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.
"If we create Standard Donation Forms now, what will happen to them when Optimised Donation Forms are released?”
Standard Donation Forms and Optimised Donation Forms may be used for different needs. For example, you may choose to embed the Standard Donation Form on your website as your general donation form, and you may choose to use the Optimised Donation Form when you are doing a specific campaign and want to minimise the steps required to acquire the donation. There are great use cases for both forms.
"We currently use a different Blackbaud Solution (i.e. Blackbaud NetCommunity™, Blackbaud Online Express™), how do Raiser’s Edge NXT® donation forms differ? Can I migrate my donation forms from my current solution?”
All new innovation for donations form development is happening on the standard and upcoming Optimised Donation Forms. The Standard Donation Form is more visually appealing than the Online Express donation form and has higher conversion rates and average gift amounts. Standard Donation Forms are accessed through Raiser’s Edge NXT® web view.
"Can we accept event registrations through Standard Donation Forms? I heard new event registration forms were being released; are they available in my region yet?”
Events are vital to your organisation's community awareness, fundraising efforts, and mission sustainment. They provide a platform for engaging supporters who want to celebrate your cause, goals, and purpose. Online registration, available for both free and paid events, will stimulate participation numbers, making it easier for supporters to sign up by streamlining the registration process. Now, save time with the tools you need for event registration and management into one place, in Raiser's Edge NXT® web view.
Blog post on release of Event Registration Forms for UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Region
Blog post on release of Event Registration Forms for Canada
Town Hall recording on Event Registration Forms for Canada
Blackbaud University Training: Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT: Event Registration Forms
Thanks to everyone again for your great questions and engagement during this webinar. We’ll continue to keep you updated as we release Optimised Donation Forms for the remaining regions! Stay tuned!
For a sneak peek at Optimised Donation Form tutorial, check out our link here.
Let’s begin with some resources:
- Here’s the recording of the webinar.
- You can download the attached slides from this blog post.
- Workshop: Standard Donation Form Workshop, every Tuesday at 2:00 pm ET
- Blackbaud Donation Forms Video
- 5 Big Ideas for Online Giving - Blackbaud
- Washington’s National Park Fund boosts donations with new online giving form
In this blog post, we will cover some specific questions/themes that came up in the Q&A of the webinar:
"Are the standard donation forms available in my region/in my product?"
The standard donation forms are now available for all Raiser’s Edge NXT customers across regions—US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific. Optimised Donation Forms are now released in the US and are anticipated to release for regions outside the US in the second half of 2024. To access standard donation forms in web view, select Tools > Donation Form Designer (or choose Online Giving from the app menu for some customers). For more information, see Online Giving help.
"How much does the standard donation form cost?”
It’s included in your Raiser’s Edge NXT subscription at no extra cost!
"Do I have to use Blackbaud Merchant Services™? What payment features are available in my region?"
The standard donation forms integrate exclusively with Blackbaud Merchant Services. All regions have access to Apple Pay, PayPal, and click-to-pay options, in addition to credit card processing. Direct debit has not yet been released for Raiser’s Edge NXT customers in Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific regions.
"What are the fee coverage options?"
To help you raise more, you can configure donation forms to give supporters the option to cover your organisation's online transaction fees during checkout through donor cover and Complete Cover™. Read more on fee coverage options here.
When Complete Cover™ is enabled, Blackbaud Merchant Services waives the processing fees for online transactions up to 3,000 in the donor’s currency. In exchange, we ask supporters to give toward Blackbaud's service. The donor can give from 0 to 100% of the donation amount.
Donor cover lets donors pay the processing fee for their transaction. When donor cover is enabled, Blackbaud Merchant Services automatically calculates the fee based on the payment method and adds it to the gift amount. Donor cover participation is optional.
"What is credit card updater?"
Credit Card Updater helps you avoid disruptions in recurring giving by keeping your supporters' credit card info — such as card numbers and expiration dates — up to date. It's available for all Blackbaud Merchant Services accounts. Learn more here.
"What is the process to issue tax receipts for donations received through the standard donation forms?"
Gifts received through standard donation forms flow into a web view gift management batch that must be approved before a tax receipt is automatically issued by email. Check out this blog post for details. Attend future product update briefings to stay up to date on future functionality releases and improvements.
"Can we edit the PDF receipt template?"
PDF Receipt Templates allow your organisation to edit the logo and signature that appears on the receipt. Your organisation controls which donation forms are configured for tax receipts.
"Can we turn off receipting for certain donation forms? If a fee coverage option is chosen, what portion will be receipted?"
Fee coverage tax receipting: For donor cover, the tax receipt is for the full contribution amount (gift amount + fee coverage amount). For Complete Cover, the tax receipt is for the gift amount only.
"How are consolidated receipts issued (for recurring gifts)?"
Consolidated receipting functionality is not yet available in Raiser’s Edge NXT web view. Your organisation should continue with your existing practices, i.e., database view, partner options, etc.
Key Resources: "What customisation options are available with the Standard Donation Forms?"
With Standard Donation Forms, you can match the colours and fonts to your organisation’s branding, as well as change the look and feel of the form by adding, configuring, removing, and styling fields, such as headers and gift options.
"Can we have one form with different copy for each appeal?"
To change copy for different campaigns, create a new donation form. Learn more about Editing form fields and style here.
"How can we track goals and analyse results?”
To track fundraising goals, goal meters are website components that display the progress of a fundraising goal and update dynamically as you receive gifts. You can customise the goal meter's style to match your website. After you embed it on your website, any future changes you make to the styling or goal amount update automatically.
When you are ready to share the form with the public, you can embed it on a webpage (compatible with most websites), publish its URL, or download its QR code. After you embed the code, all edits you make to the form automatically update the embedded content. For those seeking shortened URLs, the best practice is to embed the form on your website so that you are using your website domain. If shortened URLs are needed, there are external link shortener tools you can use.
Parameters let you pass designations, appeals, and campaigns through a donation form without adding them to the form’s configuration.
With Google Analytics you can collect data from your donation forms to create reports that provide insights for your organisation. You can also view performance information related to your form such as recurring gift upsell performance, total gift amount, total gifts over time, and to performing forms.
"Can we include 'Other' as a fund with a free text field?"
The standard donation form does not currently support the ability for a donor to write in their own fund through the fund selector. We recommend adding the “Comments” field into your form, placing it underneath the fund selector and relabeling it to instruct donors to enter alternative fund names in the free text area.
"Can we choose which funds are included as options?"
Donations are assigned to a specific designation that represents their financial purpose. To let donors choose from multiple designations, you can add more than one to a form in the Designations field and make a default selection in the Default designation field. To let donors split their gift between more than one designation, select Enable donors to split gifts between designations.
- Tip: When you add multiple designations, you can rearrange them and add donor-friendly labels.
"Is there a fund search capability?”
The Designation Search Designer website component displays a list of designations that a donor can search through and donate to directly. You can customise the style of the designation names and donate buttons to match your website. The donate button will redirect donors to a hosted URL where they can complete their donation through a donation form you select.
"For recurring gifts, what date options does the donor have?"
When designing a Standard Donation Form, you can choose the gift types to include. To select the gift types for the form, under Get started, select Enable one-time gifts" and Enable recurring gifts." You can choose between recurring gift frequencies: weekly, every two weeks, every four weeks, monthly, quarterly, or annually, and you can also choose whether a donor can enter an end date.
"Can we control the starting gift date?"
For recurring gifts, you can select whether the first payment processes when the donor submits the form or on a date the donor selects. First recurring gift payments process immediately upon form submission IF the start date is set to today. If the start date is in the future, and for all future recurring gift payments, they are automatically charged on the day scheduled and will land in batch—already charged.
"Can we convert recurring gifts from database view?"
A recurring gift created in the database view requires manual payment processing. To save time and eliminate the need to manually process payments, you can convert it to an automatic recurring gift in the web view if it is:
- Active
- Scheduled to end in the future (or doesn't have an end date)
- Scheduled to process monthly, weekly, every two or four weeks, quarterly, every six months, or annually
To migrate gifts from other solutions to Raiser’s Edge NXT, please contact your account executive or customer success manager for more information.
"For tribute gifts, can a donor send an e-card from the donation form? Is there an acknowledgment letter option?”
To give donors an opportunity to dedicate their gift to a person or cause, move the Tribute component to your forms. Gifts from donation forms are placed into unapproved batches in Fundraising, Gift Management in web view. When you approve a batch, you can view tribute information from the Tribute tab on the gift batch record.
To manage tributes, such as to associate a gift with a different honouree or notify recipients about gifts, return to the database view and follow your existing processes; eCard functionality is not yet available for standard donation forms.
- Note: To help you manage tribute records, donation forms check whether donors, the people they are honouring, and recipients have existing records. For details about how forms match or create records, see Automatic Tribute Matching.
Thank-you message: After a donor submits the form, this page appears. 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 organisation'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 personalisation. You can edit the subject line, the message, and reply-to and from names and email addresses. Note: the thank-you email is not the tax receipt; the tax receipt is issued by email after the web view gift batch is approved. Learn more about configuring your thank-you email here.
"How are consent preferences handled?”
You can add consent options to your forms and let donors choose specific communications they're interested in receiving from your organisation. For more information, see Raiser's Edge NXT - Consent.
If you configured consent business rules in the database view, solicit codes are updated automatically on constituent records when consent records are added. To learn more, see Configure Consent Business Rules.
If a donor has previously opted out and opts in through the donation form, they will be opted back into your communications.
"Are there any tools to help minimise duplicates?”
When someone completes a donation or registration form in Raiser's Edge NXT® on behalf of themselves or an organisation, it uses the constituent information to search for an existing constituent record to update before it creates a new one. This reduces the number of duplicate records and saves you time, so you don't need to manually review new constituents as potential duplicates. Read more about automatic constituent matching here. You can also configure the field mapping from standard donation forms. Read more on Raiser’s Edge NXT connection field mapping here.
A new online data review tool is coming in Q2 that will allow you to review constituent matches and any profile updates prior to any changes occurring to constituent records.
"Do Standard Donation Forms have multilingual capabilities?”
Standard Donation Forms are currently available in English only.
"How do I use QR codes? Are there QR code transaction performance metrics?”
To direct donors to a form from printed materials, during the Publish Form step, select Download QR code under Hosted URL. Next, add the QR code to printed materials, such as brochures and posters. There are no additional analytics available.
"Can we configure donation notifications? Can we have different notifications based on specific criteria?”
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.
"If we create Standard Donation Forms now, what will happen to them when Optimised Donation Forms are released?”
Standard Donation Forms and Optimised Donation Forms may be used for different needs. For example, you may choose to embed the Standard Donation Form on your website as your general donation form, and you may choose to use the Optimised Donation Form when you are doing a specific campaign and want to minimise the steps required to acquire the donation. There are great use cases for both forms.
"We currently use a different Blackbaud Solution (i.e. Blackbaud NetCommunity™, Blackbaud Online Express™), how do Raiser’s Edge NXT® donation forms differ? Can I migrate my donation forms from my current solution?”
All new innovation for donations form development is happening on the standard and upcoming Optimised Donation Forms. The Standard Donation Form is more visually appealing than the Online Express donation form and has higher conversion rates and average gift amounts. Standard Donation Forms are accessed through Raiser’s Edge NXT® web view.
"Can we accept event registrations through Standard Donation Forms? I heard new event registration forms were being released; are they available in my region yet?”
Events are vital to your organisation's community awareness, fundraising efforts, and mission sustainment. They provide a platform for engaging supporters who want to celebrate your cause, goals, and purpose. Online registration, available for both free and paid events, will stimulate participation numbers, making it easier for supporters to sign up by streamlining the registration process. Now, save time with the tools you need for event registration and management into one place, in Raiser's Edge NXT® web view.
Blog post on release of Event Registration Forms for UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Region
Blog post on release of Event Registration Forms for Canada
Town Hall recording on Event Registration Forms for Canada
Blackbaud University Training: Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT: Event Registration Forms
Thanks to everyone again for your great questions and engagement during this webinar. We’ll continue to keep you updated as we release Optimised Donation Forms for the remaining regions! Stay tuned!
For a sneak peek at Optimised Donation Form tutorial, check out our link here.
News
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT® Blog
04/02/2024 11:32am EDT
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Is everyone supposed to have access to the link “Review Blackbaud Merchant Services feature availability by region here.”? I get an access denied message.
Hi Rachel, thanks for flagging this, and my apologies, there was an error with this link, and I've removed it from the post.
When I clicked on the “access a recording of the webinar” link, I appeared to actually register for the webinar. I received a confirmation email about the event which took place about a month ago.
Can you please adjust the link so that it does connect to the recorded version and post here when that is corrected? Thanks!
Hi Karen, thanks for your note. If you open the invite in your calendar from March 7th, you'll find a link to access the event. We're working on a smoother way to access the recordings in the future. Hope this helps.