Create and Customize an Online Giving Form

The Name field serves as the internal identifier for the Online Giving Form within DonorDock. It is not displayed as a donor-facing headline on the published form, but it is used throughout the system wherever the specific Giving Page needs to be referenced.

The Giving Page name appears in reporting and filtering options, including Gift Reports that filter by Giving Page. It can also be used in Automations when Gift conditions are configured to include or exclude Gifts based on the Giving Page through which they were submitted. As a result, this field serves as both an administrative label and a reporting and workflow reference for the form.

The Gift Type field determines how DonorDock categorizes transactions submitted through the Online Giving Form. Available Gift Types are Donation, Membership, Event Ticket, and Grant. The selected Gift Type is applied to all Gifts created through the form and can also affect which additional configuration options become available elsewhere in the form settings.

When Membership is selected, an additional toggle appears for "Use Membership Type" Settings. If this setting is enabled, preset amount options on the form can be connected directly to Membership Types configured in the organization's settings. This allows the selected Membership Type to supply membership-specific information such as the membership amount, term, start and end dates, and other Membership settings when the Gift is created.

If the "Use Membership Type Settings" toggle is left turned off, transactions submitted through the form are still created with a Gift Type of Membership, but they are not tied to a specific Membership Type or its configured settings. This can be useful when the organization wants to categorize transactions as Membership Gifts without using DonorDock's Membership Type structure or automatic membership term and renewal behavior.

The Primary Color field controls the main accent color used for buttons and other branded elements on the Online Giving Form. By default, the form uses the primary color configured in your organization's global Online Giving settings, but you can override it for an individual form when a campaign, event, or fundraising initiative uses different branding.

Clicking the color square opens the color picker. The hue slider can be used to move through the broader color spectrum and select the general color family you want, while the color gradient area allows you to fine-tune the exact shade, saturation, and brightness within that range. The eyedropper tool can also be used to sample a color directly from another visible element on your screen.

For organizations working with established brand colors, the Primary Color can also be entered using RGB, HSL, or HEX values. The small two-arrow icon next to the displayed color value cycles between the available color code formats, allowing the exact brand color to be entered using whichever format your organization has available.

The Featured Image appears near the top of the Online Giving Form above the main Message. For best results, use an image sized 1000 px wide by 465 px tall or 632 px by 300 px. The small blue question mark icon next to the Featured Image setting opens a Canva template with the recommended dimensions, which can help when creating or resizing artwork for the form.

If no image has been added yet, click Add Image to begin the upload process. If the form already has a Featured Image, click Replace Image to upload a new one in its place, or select Remove Image if the current image should no longer appear on the form.

After selecting Add Image or Replace Image, an upload window will open. From here, you can drag and drop an image file into the upload area or click Select Files to Upload to locate an image stored on your computer.

Once the image has been added to the upload window, you can optionally add Alt Text by clicking the pen icon next to the Alt Text field. Alt text is a short written description of an image that screen readers can read and that displays when an image cannot be viewed, helping make the content more accessible.

The uploaded image can also be adjusted before it is added to the form. Click the blue Edit button to access the available image editing tools. These options include Crop to adjust the visible portion of the image, Circle to display the image in a circular shape, and Rotate to change the image orientation.

After adding any Alt Text and making the desired image edits, click Upload to finish adding the image to the Online Giving Form. The image will then appear in the Featured Image setting.

To save the change to the Giving Page itself, click the main Save button in the upper-right corner of the Online Giving Form settings. After saving, the preview on the right side of the page will update so you can review how the Featured Image appears within the donor-facing form and make additional adjustments if needed.

By default, the organization logo saved in your DonorDock settings appears at the top of the Online Giving Form, above the Featured Image. If you do not want that logo displayed on a particular form, turn on Hide Organization Logo and click Save. The logo will be removed from the donor-facing page while the rest of the form branding remains unchanged.

If you want to use a different logo for a specific Online Giving Form, turn on the toggle to Hide Organization Logo and then click Add Image within the logo setting and upload a replacement image. The upload process uses the same image tools available for the Featured Image, including drag-and-drop or file selection, optional Alt Text, and basic editing options such as Crop, Circle, and Rotate. After you prepare the image, click Upload, then use the main Save button in the upper-right corner of the Giving Page settings to apply the change and update the preview.

The logo element displays at a fixed, relatively small size on the Giving Page, and you cannot adjust that display size. If you want your logo to appear larger or be incorporated more prominently into the page design, another option is to include the logo directly within the Featured Image and then turn on Hide Organization Logo to remove the smaller logo element from the top of the form.

The Message field contains the primary body content displayed on the Online Giving Form. This area can be used for program details, donor instructions, or other supporting content that should appear directly on the page.

The Message editor includes a built-in rich text toolbar with formatting controls for Bold, Italic, Underline, and Strikethrough. A Block Quote option is also available, which formats selected text as a quoted section and adds the vertical quote bar commonly used to visually separate quoted or emphasized content from the surrounding text.

For organizations that need more control over the underlying markup, the editor also includes an HTML option. This allows HTML content to be viewed or inserted directly within the Message field when supported by the editor.

Text structure can be adjusted using the available heading and list tools. The toolbar includes quick formatting options for Heading 1 and Heading 2, as well as Numbered List and Bulleted List controls. Additional text formatting options include Superscript, which raises selected text above the normal text line, and Subscript, which lowers selected text below the normal text line.

The editor also includes Decrease Indent and Increase Indent controls for adjusting how far a paragraph or list item is positioned from the left margin. A Text Direction control lets you switch paragraph direction between left-to-right and right-to-left by clicking on the paragraph icon.

Font sizing can be adjusted using the basic size options Small, Normal, Large, and Huge. A separate heading style dropdown provides more structured formatting options, including Normal text and Heading 1 through Heading 6.

The available font family options are limited to Sans Serif, Serif, and Monospace. Additional custom font families cannot currently be added to the Message editor.

Text alignment can be set to Left, Center, Right, or Justify, allowing individual paragraphs or sections of content to be positioned differently within the Message area.

The Link tool can be used to turn selected text into a clickable hyperlink. The Image tool can also be used to insert additional images directly within the Message body, separate from the main Featured Image configured elsewhere in the form settings.

The Message editor does not currently include expanded font styling options such as custom font colors, background colors, or additional font families. If the form requires more visually customized branding, such as colored text, custom typography, or graphic-heavy messaging, those design elements can instead be incorporated into the Featured Image and used alongside the Message content.

The First Page CTA Button Text field controls the label displayed on the primary Stripe action button at the bottom of the first page of the Online Giving Form. Donors select this button to continue from the initial giving information to the Stripe billing and payment portion of the form.

The default button text is Pay Now, but you can customize the label to better match the form's purpose or tone.

Examples: Continue, Make Your Payment, or Complete Your Gift.

This setting applies only to the Stripe CTA button. The CTA buttons used for PayPal and DAFpay are not customizable through this field and will continue to use their standard button labels.

The Goal Preferences settings control how fundraising progress is tracked and displayed on an Online Giving Form. These settings can be used to maintain an internal goal for the form, display progress publicly to donors, or show progress toward a larger Campaign rather than only the Gifts associated with that individual Giving Page.

Giving Page Goal

The Giving Page Goal field stores the monetary fundraising target associated with the Online Giving Form. For example, entering 5,000 sets a $5,000 goal for the page.

Goal Label

The Goal Label controls the wording displayed beneath the progress bar when goal progress is shown on the Giving Page. This label appears alongside the percentage of the goal reached.

For example, if the Giving Page Goal is $5,000, Gifts totaling $1,000 have been counted toward the goal, and the Goal Label is set to Raised, the Giving Page would display 20% Raised beneath the progress bar.

This field lets the progress language better match the fundraiser's purpose, rather than requiring every page to use the same terminology.

Show Goal Amount and Progress Bar

The Show Goal Amount and Progress Bar toggle controls whether donors can see fundraising progress on the published Giving Page. When this setting is turned on, the page displays progress toward the configured goal, including the amount raised and the progress bar.

When the toggle is turned off, the Giving Page Goal remains available for internal tracking, but goal progress is not displayed publicly on the donor-facing page.

Use Campaign Progress Bar

The Use Campaign Progress Bar toggle is a conditional setting that becomes available when a Campaign has been assigned to the Giving Page under the Tracking section.

By default, the progress bar reflects Gifts associated with the individual Giving Page. When Use Campaign Progress Bar is enabled, the progress display instead reflects the overall progress of the connected Campaign.

For example, an organization may have separate Giving Pages for different teams, events, or audience segments that all feed into the same Campaign. Using the Campaign Progress Bar allows each of those pages to display progress toward the shared Campaign total.

Gifts do not have to be submitted online in order to contribute toward Giving Page or Campaign progress. When manually entering an offline Gift in DonorDock, a Giving Page and/or Campaign can also be assigned to the Gift. This allows checks, cash Gifts, and other offline transactions to be included in the applicable progress totals even though they were not originally submitted through the Online Giving Form.

The Giving Frequencies settings control which recurring options are available. These settings apply only to Stripe transactions and determine the frequency choices displayed on the donor-facing form.

Available Stripe frequencies include:

• One-Time

• Weekly

• Monthly

• Quarterly

• Semi-Annually

• Annually

Each frequency has its own toggle. Turning on a frequency displays that option on the Giving Page for donors to select, and enabled toggles appear blue. At least one Stripe frequency must be enabled, and an organization may choose to offer only one-time giving, only recurring giving, or a combination of both.

The "Default Frequency" dropdown determines which enabled frequency is selected automatically when a donor first opens the Giving Page. Donors can still choose a different available frequency before continuing with their Gift.

These frequency settings do not apply to PayPal subscriptions. PayPal recurring Gifts are limited to monthly donations. When PayPal is selected as the payment method, a monthly subscription checkbox appears automatically after donors are redirected to PayPal to finalize their payment.

DAFpay through Chariot is available only for one-time Gifts. If a donor selects a recurring frequency such as Monthly, Quarterly, or Annually, the DAFpay payment option will automatically be hidden because that Gift is no longer eligible for payment through DAFpay.

The Amount Options settings control how donors choose the dollar amount of their Gift. Online Giving Forms can offer a custom amount field, preset amount options, or both, depending on how the two available settings are configured.

Custom Amount

The "Show Custom Amount Box" toggle controls whether donors can enter their own Gift Amount. When this setting is turned on, a custom amount field is displayed on the Giving Page, and donors can enter any amount they would like to give.

When "Show Custom Amount Box" is turned off, donors cannot enter their own amount. In that case, the form must provide another available amount option under preset amounts for the donor to select before continuing.

When the custom amount option is enabled, an additional "Suggested Gift Amount" field becomes available. This field can be used to prepopulate the custom amount box with a suggested dollar amount when the donor first opens the page. The donor can still change that amount before continuing. If no suggested amount should appear, the field can be left blank.

Preset Amounts

The "Show Preset Amount Options" toggle controls whether predefined Gift Amount choices appear on the Giving Page. When this setting is turned off, no preset amount options are displayed. When turned on, you can configure up to 30 preset options for donors to choose from.

Each preset option can include a Gift Amount, an optional title of up to 50 characters, and an optional non-deductible amount. The title provides donor-facing context for what the amount represents, such as a ticket level, sponsorship option, or suggested impact amount. Currently, the title is used only on the Giving Page and does not carry over to the Gift record created in DonorDock.

The optional non-deductible amount can be used when part or all of the preset amount is not tax-deductible. This can be helpful for transactions such as Event Tickets, memberships, meals, or other purchases where the donor receives goods or services in return for part of the payment.

A donor can select only one preset amount option for a single transaction before continuing to payment. Online Giving Forms do not currently include shopping cart functionality, so donors cannot select multiple preset options and combine them into one checkout.

The "Preset Display Order" dropdown controls how the configured preset amounts are arranged on the donor-facing page. Presets can be displayed from lowest to highest or highest to lowest, letting the organization control how available options are presented to donors.

The "Memorial Donations" setting controls whether donors can identify a Gift as being made in honor or in memory of another person. When this option is enabled, the Giving Page displays a checkbox labeled "Give in honor or memory of someone." Selecting that checkbox expands additional tribute fields for the donor to complete.

The donor can first choose whether the Gift is an Honor or Memorial tribute using the "Is this a memorial or honorarium?" dropdown. They can then enter the required "Honoree Name" to identify the person being recognized and may also provide a "Tribute Message" of up to 1,500 characters with any additional context or dedication they would like associated with the Gift.

Additional dedication contact information can also be entered if the donor would like to identify someone who should be informed of the tribute. These optional fields include contact email, contact name, street address, city, state, postal code, and country.

Entering dedication contact information does not automatically send a notification to that person. The standard automatic Thank You or Receipt email is sent only to the donor who completed the Gift. If your organization would like to notify the dedication contact that a tribute Gift was made, that follow-up must be completed separately.

Tribute information is also available for reporting. When a donor selects the tribute option, the "Tribute?" field on the resulting Gift is set to True. Gift Reports can also include columns for "Tribute Type", "Tribute Message", "Honoree Name", "Dedication Contact Email", "Dedication Contact Name", "Dedication Contact Street Address", "Dedication Contact City", "Dedication Contact State", "Dedication Contact Postal Code", and "Dedication Contact Country". These fields make it possible to identify tribute Gifts and review the dedication information provided by the donor directly through reports.

The "Anonymous Donations" setting controls whether donors can request that their Gift be treated as anonymous. When this option is enabled, the donor-facing Giving Page includes an anonymous-giving checkbox that the donor can select before completing the transaction.

When a donor selects this option, the Gift is still connected to the donor’s known Contact record in DonorDock. DonorDock retains the donor’s name and contact information internally, and the Gift remains available on the Contact record for normal gift history, receipts, contribution statements, and internal reporting. The Gift’s "Giver Visibility" is set to "Treat as Anonymous", indicating that the donor is known to the organization but has requested that the Gift not be publicly attributed to them.

This is different from "Truly Anonymous", which is used when the donor’s identity is not known and the Gift is instead associated with DonorDock’s system Anonymous Contact record. Online donors who provide their information and request anonymity are treated as known donors with an anonymity preference, not as unknown donors.

The donor’s request for anonymity does not automatically control how your organization publishes donor names outside of DonorDock. The organization is responsible for honoring the request when preparing donor walls, annual reports, event recognition, public giving lists, or other acknowledgments.

Anonymous giving is also available for reporting. When a Gift is marked "Treat as Anonymous", the "Treat as Anonymous" field can be included in Gift Reports and will display as True. This lets you identify Gifts to exclude from public recognition while still retaining complete donor and transaction information internally.

The "Donor Feedback" toggle option controls whether a free-form comment field appears on the donor-facing Giving Page. When enabled, the form displays a text box that allows donors to enter up to 2,000 characters of additional information with their Gift.

Turning on "Donor Feedback" also reveals two additional settings: "Donor Feedback Label" and "Require Donor Feedback?". The default label shown to donors is "Leave a comment", but this text can be replaced with a custom prompt or question. This makes the field useful not only for general comments, but also for collecting a free-form response tied to the Gift.

Any response entered by the donor is stored on the resulting Gift record in the donor feedback or donor comments field. You can also include that value in Gift Reports and use it as a merge tag in supported Templates, allowing you to reference the response later in reporting, acknowledgments, or other communications.

When "Require Donor Feedback?" is enabled, the donor must enter a response before they can continue to the payment portion of the Giving Page. When the setting is turned off, the field remains optional, and the donor can proceed without entering a value.

The Custom Fields section lets Online Giving Forms collect additional organization-specific information not covered by DonorDock’s standard Contact or Gift fields. Online Giving Forms can use both Contact Custom Fields and Gift Custom Fields, depending on where the submitted information should be stored after the donor completes the form.

Contact Custom Fields are intended for information that should remain associated with the donor over time, such as program participation, communication preferences, or other long-term Contact details. Gift Custom Fields are intended for information that belongs only to the specific transaction, such as event details, sponsorship information, internal tracking data, or other Gift-level responses. Form Response Custom Fields are not available for Online Giving Forms because these forms create a Contact and Gift rather than a Form Response.

The "Custom Fields Label" field controls the heading displayed above the custom fields added to the Giving Page. This can be used to provide context for the additional questions or information being collected.

To add an available custom field to the Giving Page, click "Add Field" and select from the eligible Contact or Gift Custom Fields configured for the organization. Custom Fields must already exist in your Organization Settings before they can be added to an Online Giving Form.

After you add a field, use the settings wheel icon beside it to control whether a response is required before the donor can continue. The trash can icon removes the field from the Giving Page, while the double-line drag handle can be used to move the field up or down and control the order in which custom fields appear to donors.

Responses submitted through Contact Custom Fields are stored on the matched or newly created Contact record. Responses submitted through Gift Custom Fields are stored on the individual Gift created from the transaction, allowing the information to remain tied specifically to that Gift for later viewing and reporting.

Custom Fields are created and managed in your organization’s Custom Fields settings. To access them, open the settings menu (grid icon, top right) and select Settings. On the organization settings page, select Custom Fields in the left navigation panel.

The Success Settings determine what the donor sees immediately after a successful transaction. The Giving Page can either display a message that is set in the settings or redirect the donor to another webpage. These are mutually exclusive completion experiences, so the page will use whichever option is selected in the Success Settings.

When "Display a Thank You Message" is selected, a message editor becomes available for creating the content that appears after the donor completes the Gift. This message is displayed directly on the Giving Page and can be used to confirm that the transaction was successful, thank the donor, provide next steps, or share other post-gift information. The message editor supports text formatting and images, allowing you to customize the completion screen for the individual Giving Page.

When "Redirect to a Webpage" is selected instead, the donor is automatically sent to the URL entered in the redirect field after the transaction is successfully completed. This can be used to direct donors to a custom thank-you page, campaign landing page, event information, downloadable resources, or another page maintained by the organization.

The "Send Automatic Thank You Email" toggle controls whether DonorDock sends an email acknowledgment automatically after a successful Gift is completed through the Giving Page. This setting is separate from the on-page Thank You Message or redirect, so an organization can display a completion message or send the donor to another webpage while still sending an automatic email acknowledgment.

When this setting is enabled, additional fields become available for "Email Template for Thank You Email" and "Send Thank You Email From". The selected template must be a Transactional Template and determines the content of the acknowledgment or receipt sent for Gifts associated with that Giving Page.

The same Transactional Template is used for all qualifying Gifts that come through the Giving Page. This also applies to recurring giving. If a donor establishes a recurring Stripe subscription through the Giving Page, the receipt template saved in the Giving Page Success Settings will continue to be used for future recurring Gifts created from that subscription as they are processed.

Because the template is assigned at the Giving Page level, this setting is best suited for situations where all Gifts through the page should receive the same acknowledgment or receipt. For example, a Giving Page created for a specific Campaign, event, or Membership program can use a receipt tailored to that fundraising effort.

If different receipts need to be sent based on information about the individual Gift, such as Gift Amount, Fund, Gift Type, Custom Field responses, or other qualifying data, Automations can be used instead of relying on a single Giving Page receipt template. An Automation can use the "Gift Created" trigger, filter for the applicable Giving Page, add additional Gift filters for the conditions that should determine the response, and then send the appropriate Transactional Template for each scenario.

For example, an organization could create separate Automations for Gifts from the same Giving Page where one receipt is sent for Gifts below a certain amount, and another is sent for Gifts above that amount.

When using Automations for conditional receipt logic, the automatic Thank You Email in the Giving Page Success Settings should be left off so donors do not receive both the general Giving Page receipt and an Automation-based receipt for the same Gift.

The "Campaign" field associates Gifts submitted through the Online Giving Form with a specific Campaign in DonorDock. Only one Campaign can be assigned to a Giving Page at a time, and that Campaign must already exist in DonorDock before it can be selected in the form settings.

When a Campaign is assigned, Gifts created through the Giving Page are automatically connected to that Campaign. This allows the resulting transactions to be included in Campaign-based reporting and helps keep Gifts from a specific fundraising initiative grouped together without requiring the Campaign to be added manually after each Gift is received.

The Campaign selection can also affect the Goal Preferences configured earlier on the Giving Page. When a Campaign has been assigned, the conditional "Use Campaign Progress Bar" setting becomes available. If that option is enabled, the donor-facing progress bar reflects the overall progress of the associated Campaign rather than only the Gifts tied directly to that individual Giving Page.

The "Appeal" field associates Gifts submitted through the Online Giving Form with a specific Appeal in DonorDock. Only one Appeal can be assigned to a Giving Page at a time, and the Appeal must already exist in DonorDock before it can be selected in the form settings.

When an Appeal is assigned, Gifts created through the Giving Page are automatically connected to that Appeal. This can be useful when the Giving Page is tied to a particular communication, event, mailing, or outreach effort and the organization wants resulting Gifts attributed consistently.

The "Add Gift Tags to Gifts" field allows one or more Gift Tags to be applied automatically to Gifts created through the Online Giving Form.

Unlike Campaigns and Appeals, which allow only one value to be assigned to a Giving Page, multiple Gift Tags can be added. Every Gift created through the page will receive the selected tags automatically, making Gift Tags useful for adding additional layers of classification beyond the Campaign, Appeal, Fund, or Gift Type.

Gift Tags can later be used in Gift Reports, filtering, saved views, and other workflows to identify transactions associated with a particular initiative, source, event, or internal tracking category.

The Fund settings control which Fund is assigned to Gifts received through the Giving Page. Funds must already be created in DonorDock before they can be selected here.

The "Default Fund" field can be used when Gifts from the Giving Page should normally go to the same Fund. If donor designation is not enabled, the Default Fund will automatically be added to every Gift received through the page.

If you want donors to choose where their Gift should go, turn on the toggle for "Allow Donors to Designate Gifts". This opens the "Fund Options" setting, where you can select the Funds you want donors to be able to choose from on the Giving Page.

You can also use a Default Fund while allowing donor designations. In that case, the Default Fund will be selected initially, but the donor can choose a different Fund from the available options before completing their Gift.

Only one Fund can be selected for each Gift. If you want a donor to divide their contribution between multiple Funds, they would need to complete separate Gifts.

The Fund selected through the Giving Page is saved directly on the Gift record and can be used later for reporting, filtering, and other Fund-based workflows in DonorDock.

The "Add Badges to Contacts" field allows you to automatically apply one or more Badges to donors who complete a Gift through the Giving Page.

Badges are added to the donor’s Contact record when the Gift is created. Any Badges selected here are added in addition to the standard Online Giving Badges that DonorDock may apply automatically, such as "Online Donor" or recurring online donor Badges.

The "Add Marketing Lists to Contacts" field allows donors who complete a Gift through the Giving Page to be automatically added to one or more Marketing Lists. When the Gift is created, the selected Marketing Lists are added to the donor’s Contact record.

For example, donors who give through an event-specific Giving Page could automatically be added to an event supporters list, while donors who use a recurring giving page could be added to a recurring donor communication list.

The "Text-to-Donate Keyword" field is used to set the word or phrase that will trigger the automatic response. Keywords must be between 3 and 50 characters and should be short, easy to remember, and easy to type. A general Giving Page might use a keyword such as GIVE, while a campaign-specific page could use the campaign or program name.

Keywords are not case-sensitive, so GIVE, Give, and give are treated the same. However, the keyword must match exactly in spelling. For example, if the keyword is DONATE, a donor texting DONATION or DONATE NOW would not trigger that Giving Page’s automatic response.

The "Text-to-Donate Response" field controls the message DonorDock sends back after the keyword is received. The Giving Page URL is automatically added to the end of the response, so it does not need to be entered manually.

The full response is limited to 1600 characters, including the Giving Page URL. A character counter is available in the response field to help keep the message within that limit.

Turning on "Disable This Page and Show a Custom Message" replaces the active Giving Page with a custom placeholder page. Visitors who use the existing URL will see the placeholder instead of being redirected to your organization’s default Giving Page.

When the setting is enabled, additional options appear for customizing the disabled page. You can control whether the organization logo is shown, add a custom message explaining why the page is unavailable, and choose whether the fundraising goal and amount raised should still be displayed.

Because the original URL remains active, this option is especially helpful when the Giving Page has already been shared in emails, social media posts, printed materials, or QR codes. Rather than sending visitors somewhere unexpected, you can leave a message that is specific to that fundraiser or event.

To begin accepting Gifts through the page again, turn off "Disable This Page and Show a Custom Message" and save the Giving Page. The standard donor-facing form will become available again at the same URL.