Editing Offline Matches and Challenges

Once you've created an offline match or challenge, most of the progress is made automatically. However, there are times you may need to make a change or adjustment.

Deleting an offline match or challenge entered by mistake

If an offline match or challenge was created in error, you can cancel the record so that the commitment is removed and not processed.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to Manage Donations.

   ---

   Next, locate the match using either Manage Donations or Motivation & Sharing > Matches & Challenges.

   (Alternatively, search for the offline match using donor name, email, or by the word "phantom".)
2. Open the donation record by clicking its donation ID.
3. Click the Cancel button at the top of the donation record and confirm your choice.

Important:

• Confirm with the match donor before canceling, if possible. This action cannot be undone in the admin interface.
• Canceling the offline match removes the commitment entirely; it will not be processed and will be removed from campaign totals.
• If the issue is an incorrect amount, criteria, or another setting, consider editing the match/challenge instead. Refer to the rest of this article for instructions on editing offline matches and challenges.
• After canceling, allow a few minutes for campaign totals and progress to update across the site.

When gift edits don't update match/challenge progress

When changing a gift’s designation or affiliation, review the checkbox to count it toward active matches restricted to the newly selected designation or affiliation. It is checked by default. After saving, verify actual match/challenge progress before making a manual adjustment.

If qualifying progress still needs correction, use the offline adjustment controls below. Avoid adding progress a second time if the gift was already counted.

Example: A donor gives without selecting a Faculty/Staff affiliation. Later, you add the affiliation, but the Faculty/Staff-directed challenge still doesn’t register the gift. In this case, manually update the challenge progress.

How to manually adjust progress

When a gift should count toward a match or challenge after being edited:

1. For matches: Update the Value field to reflect the total amount that should be matched.
2. For challenges: Update the Nummatches field to reflect the count of qualifying gifts or dollars.
3. Save your changes.

When post‑gift edits don’t update progress

Some changes or completed matches/challenges require manual reconciliation. Check the gift’s eligibility, the edit checkbox and the current progress first.

• Example: If a gift still does not appear in a Faculty/Staff-directed challenge after saving its affiliation with the eligibility checkbox selected, verify the other criteria and current progress before a manual adjustment.
• Resolution: Manually adjust progress on the corresponding match or challenge by updating Nummatches (and Value for matches) to include the edited gift.

When a match donor also gives online (double‑counting)

If a donor makes an offline match commitment and an online gift, the system may count them as two separate contributions. This can falsely indicate that the match is fulfilled even though the donor gave only once.

Follow these two steps to correct the counts:

Step 1 — Move the online gift off the campaign

1. Use the Move to different campaign dropdown to relocate the gift. Moving the gift removes it from the campaign and updates donor counts for both campaigns.
2. Allow a few minutes for totals and donor counts to refresh.

Note: Gifts can only be moved within the same type (for example, between different Giving Forms or Social Fundraising campaigns). If the destination you need isn’t available, the gift type may not support a direct move.

Step 2 — Reset the offline match

1. Open the offline match itself through Motivation & Sharing → Matches & Challenges or its donation ID in Manage Gifts.
2. Review the progress after the online gift was moved. Set Value to the amount that should remain matched and adjust Nummatches as appropriate. Do not automatically set Value to zero if other qualifying gifts remain.
3. If Value is locked because payment processing completed, contact Support rather than attempting to reset it.
4. Click Update Donation and check campaign totals and progress.

Example:

• If a $3,000 offline commitment duplicates a $3,000 online payment from its sponsor, first determine which record should represent the gift, then reconcile the campaign total and qualifying match progress. Moving or replacing records should preserve the intended single gift and any legitimate matching activity.

After completing these steps, verify that the campaign totals and match progress are accurate. Note that changes may take a few minutes to propagate.

Editing Offline Matches and Challenges

• Option 1: 
  • Click on the Pencil icon next to the Match or Challenge you wish to edit
• Option 2:

  Manage Gifts

   
  • Search for the offline match/challenge that you’d like to edit (by donor name, email or using the word "phantom")
  • Click on its donation ID

---

Below are the types of things you can edit. Once you’ve made your adjustments, be sure to hit the Update Donation button at the bottom of the page!

Match/Challenge Progress 
Scroll down to the Match/Challenge Information

---

Directing/Restricting
Scroll down to the bottom of the Match/Challenge Information section

Directing offline matches/challenges restrict them so that they can only be triggered by certain gifts.

• Check the Directed box
• Select the designation, designation group, affiliation, or year you'd like to limit this to
• If selecting multiple years or designations, click Add One and select

---

Match/Challenge Type 

Scroll down to the Match/Challenge Information

To change between Dollar-based or Donor-based, adjust the selection in Match/Challenge Type.

---

Start & end date

By default matches start when they are created and end on the campaign end date/time. To change that, edit the respective fields. If a campaign is extended, by default matches and challenges with that end date are extended, as well. You can undo that here.

---

Title & Description

---

Donor information

At the top of the page, you also can change various donor details of the offline match/challenge gift, including payer name, email, anonymity, and joint donor information.

---

Can I make these same edits to online matches & challenges?

For online donor-created matches and challenges, school administrators can edit the title and description. Contact Support to change progress or directed/restricted criteria. The full editing controls described above apply to offline matches and challenges.

---

Mistakes?

It happens? Check out Managing Mistakes in Offline Gifts & Adjustments

Only set the NumMatch field for challenges

Required Updates:

1. NumMatches field: Enter the number of donors or dollars who have qualified

2. Value field: Stays at zero until the challenge is complete.

Example:

• Challenge: "$500 if 50 people donate to the campaign"
• 5 new qualifying donors need to be added
• NumMatches: add "5" to the current count
• Value: leave at 0

When the challenge is complete the value field will automatically update to 500

Accounting for Existing Gifts in New Matches and Challenges

When You Want Gifts Already Made to Count

If you create a match or challenge after gifts have already been made and want those gifts to count toward the new match/challenge:

You cannot backdate to automatically include gifts. However, you can manually adjust the progress:

For Matches:

1. Calculate the total amount that should be matched from existing gifts
2. Update the Value field to reflect this amount
3. Optionally update Nummatches to reflect the number of qualifying gifts

For Challenges:

1. Count the existing donors or dollars that meet your challenge criteria
2. Update the Nummatches field to reflect this count
3. Keep Value at 0 until the challenge completes

Example: If you create a "$100 per donor to Athletics" match and 15 people already gave to Athletics, set the Value field to $1,500.

Important: Only gifts that meet your match/challenge criteria (designation, affiliation, etc.) should be counted in these adjustments.

When gifts count toward progress

Progress is calculated using the details captured at checkout:

• Gifts are checked against the active match rules. Later designation or affiliation edits can trigger reevaluation when the edit checkbox is selected. Verify current progress before making manual adjustments.
• Later designation or affiliation edits can reevaluate active matches when the checkbox is selected. Check the saved gift and progress before adding manual credit.
• Gifts made before a match or challenge goes live don’t count. Only gifts processed after the start time qualify.
• Match-on-match contributions are excluded. Dollars added by another match or a completed challenge aren’t treated as new gifts.

Common scenarios and resolutions

• "Nummatches updated but public progress didn’t move."
  For matches, the progress bar reflects the Value (total matched dollars). To update progress, adjust the Value field.
• "Parent affiliations were added after gifts came in, and the challenge didn’t update."
  If the gift is still missing after reevaluation, reconcile the challenge’s Nummatches to reconcile the qualifying count.
• "The incentive isn’t fully unlocked despite having many qualifying gifts."
  Verify that all gifts met the required timing and checkout criteria. If necessary, adjust Value (for matches) or Nummatches (for challenges) to reflect accurate progress.

Manual adjustment cheat sheet

• Matches: Update Value to the total matched amount. You can adjust Nummatches for recordkeeping, though it won’t affect the match progress.
• Challenges: Update Nummatches to reflect the number of qualifying gifts or dollars. Keep Value at 0 until the challenge completes.

Tip: Allow a few minutes for campaign page progress to refresh after updates.

Deleting offline matches and challenges

If you need to remove an offline match or challenge from your campaign page, follow these steps:

1. Go to Campaign Settings > Manage Donations.
2. Search for the term "phantom" to list offline matches and challenges.
3. Select the donation by clicking its donation ID.
4. Click the Cancel button to remove the offline match or challenge.

After deletion

• The match or challenge state changes from "phantom" to "canceled".
• It will no longer appear on the campaign page.

--- _Additional content added 2026-05-04:_

User‑generated (online) matches vs. offline matches: what you can and can't edit

Not all match settings are editable in the admin interface. The differences are as follows:

• User‑generated matches (created online by donors): Administrators can edit the title and description, but progress and directed/restricted criteria cannot be changed.
• Offline matches: All settings—progress, directed/restricted criteria, title, and description—can be edited using the tools described in this article.

How to correct a donor‑created match

To update the progress or directed/restricted criteria on a user‑generated match, contact support@givecampus.com with the donor’s name and the specific changes required. For example, if a donor selected a per‑donor match amount instead of a dollar‑for‑dollar match, include that change in your message.

If the match was created as an offline match, you can make the change yourself using the editing steps provided above.