One Campaign or Many?

Jennifer Warner

Our organization is the parent company of several non-profit entities. We are the centralized fundraising office (fundraising for all of these many entities). I want to set up a tribute-giving campaign through JustGiving on our centralized website.

The problem: I can only assign one fund to the campaign…

Questions: How do you work through this? Do I set up a campaign for each of the entities individually or do I have one campaign and ask people to fill in the blank regarding what they are supporting (and manually adjust each gift)? Does anyone have a sample of how they've worked through this?

Joe Moretti

First off, this is a problem with Blackbaud's JUST GIVING, it has not been set up very well, since it is a product from another company that Blackbaud purchased. This is just one of many issues which is why I do not use JUST GIVING.


Peer to Peer first off are to raise money for ONE fund or purpose, that is the whole idea behind Peer to Peer programs. I don't think many non-profits get this or know this aspect.


For simplicity sake and to be not so difficult on you, I would just have donors put in the comment section what fund they want to give to. It seems that you have many pages and you do not want the headache of creating several separate pages in Just Giving, it kind of defeats the purpose of a Peer to Peer. If you have just a couple of campaigns having each one with it's own fund would be fine, but if you have MANY, that is way too time consuming and a waste of someone's time.


Hope this helps, but Blackbaud needs a much better Peer to Peer product that is completely in sync with Raiser's Edge like Online Express or NetCommunity or non-profits have to realize their are limits to JUST GIVING and work with that frame. The bottom line, Blackbaud needs to stop cranking out so many products that are not finished (like RE NXT) or do not sync properly with RE (like Just Giving) and focus on a few products and making them the best they can.

Stephanie Thomas

Hi Jennifer,

@Joe is correct- these campaigns are intended to be a 1:1 relationship with a fund. In the long run, we are exploring ways to have a more customizable donation form element (say- it has a drop down for funds, for example), but campaigns really are not intended to be a donation form replacement.

In your use case, my recommendation is to have a campaign for each fund and those can link up onto 1 central landing page. We find that keeping it under 8-12 options on the page is best- prevents folks from getting overwhelmed and failing to convert. If you need help building it out, let your Account Executive know. We have fundraising hubs built by our services team for this exact use case. I hope that helps.

Stephanie Thomas

Thanks for sharing your feedback, Joe. We are always striving to implement improvements to the product we have and I invite you to join our upcoming Product Update Briefings to hear the investments being made into NXT and JustGiving.

Sara Wines

While I agree that Just Giving could be more robust, I think I disagree with the larger premise here.

If this is true one-to-one "crowdfunding", people should be getting a direct link to a friend or peer's giving page set up in relation to a particular JG campaign, which would be connected to a fund. No need for searching out the fund you want to give to.

Think of it this way--you don't go to a friend's GoFundMe for their dad's funeral expenses and think, "gee, I'd rather give them money to pay rent than for her dad's service". You respond directly to the need expressed by the individual, which is what makes it "peer-to-peer". JG should be similar--you have an individual campaign tailored to a very specific ask for a specific need. JG is not suited for use as a general giving form. Instead, think of ways you can utilize it for Athletic giving, student organization fundraising, or departmental needs. Any request that would benefit from an actual human face--let's say the baseball team fundraising for new equipment--is best suited for JG. General fundraising, like for the annual fund, really is not.

I'm happy to answer additional questions! I'm a big JG fan!

Joe Moretti

I am not a fan of Just Giving, I think there are issues (like the duplicated issue) that Blackbaud needs to work out to make it top notch (I think Network for Good is much better except is does not sync with RE). That being said, I totally agree with Sara on her comment that Just Giving or any other Peer to Peer is for a specific fund/campaign/whatever you want to call it, so there is no need for a drop-down box. You are raising money say for an Emergency Fund and that ONLY, not a million other things, because that is not how a Peer to Peer works. The problem is with non-profit's management, Director of Development, VP's ,etc that just DO NOT GET THAT CONCEPT and want it to work like MAGIC. These folks need to be educated and not think that want you want means that it can be done. You all need to listen to the folks in the trenches who KNOW the systems, listen to them and just STAY OUT OF THE WAY, instead of causing issues and stress that is not needed. EDUCATE YOURSELVES on what is reality and what is magic.

Liz Whittington

Hi Joe, I saw your other comment about Just Giving not syncing properly with RE and it looks like there may be some duplication issue. I am looking into this product for my organization. Can you please tell me more about Just Giving and the issues you see with it? Thanks for any information you can provide.

Sara, can you tell me why you love it? How has it worked well for you? Thank you!