How to Launch a Giving Form

Once you've completed your Onboarding to GiveCampus, these are your next steps toward launching a Giving Form as quickly and easily as possible. 

If you can't access your GiveCampus dashboard, contact your Partner Success Manager.

Configure School-level Settings

These are settings, defaults, and options that you will want to configure before creating individual Giving Forms. You can access these items by heading to your Online Giving Dashboard > School-level Settings. Below are the key sections you should complete first.

• Branding: Adjust any branding or imagery such as logos, favicons, and headers
• Designations: Add (or upload) your school-level options for Designations & Designation Groups
• Pro tip: Include Backend Designation ID's from your CRM for easy reporting and gift reconciliation
• PayPal: complete onboarding for PayPal so PayPal and Venmo are available as payment options. 
• School Fields: These are for custom, non-standard questions you may want to add across multiple forms
• Optional: Create custom affiliations, if needed

Create your first Giving Form

• Within the Online Giving Dashboard, select the Giving Forms tab and click +New Giving Form. 
• You will be prompted to enter basic details about your Giving Form. 
• Complete the required fields (Form Name and Form Type) and then select Continue to Form Builder.
  • Remember: Any setting can be changed later, so don't sweat the details at this point!
• You will arrive on the Form Builder. At this time, you can select your fields or click I'm Done to head to your Giving Form's settings.
• If you don't want to start from scratch, write us at support@givecampus.com and ask us to drop one of these starter templates into your drafts (be sure to include the link to the form(s) you want in your message). Each can be adapted to meet your needs!
  • General Giving Form
  • General Annual Fund

Configure settings on the Forms page

• Within the Form Settings tab, enable features like:
  • Suggested Giving Amounts
  • Recurring Giving
  • Designations
  • Affiliations
• Within the Pre-payment Form, Payment Form, and Post-Payment Form tabs, add text and images, as applicable. 
• Pro tip: you can add links to your form text by using basic HTML like <a href="url">link text</a>
• To edit the form fields, click Edit form in the top right to access the Form Builder

Activate your Email Templates on the Email Templates page

• Each form allows you to set up custom email acknowledgements for donors. There are templates for One Time Gifts and Recurring Gifts (if recurring giving has been turned on for a form). Select each template from the Email Templates dropdown at the top of the page.
  • Pro tip: Use the templates at the bottom of this article if you don't want to build your language from scratch
  • Extra Credit: Consider conditional email templates for specific designations and affiliations
• IMPORTANT: You will need to send a test email before you can activate each template
• Consider turning on Incomplete Gift Nudges, located at the bottom of the Email Templates page

Prepare to share out your Form on the Unique Tracking Links page

• When you are ready to update the Give Now button on your website or share a giving form link in an appeal, make sure to create Unique Tracking Links to capture engagement data (clicks, dollars, donors). Note that each unique tracking link also comes with it's own QR code (located all the way to the right of each link's row).
• Extra Credit: Check out Autofill Links to speed up and personalize the giving process 

Launch your Giving Form!

• Once you're happy with the look and feel of your form, click Launch Giving Form on the top right of the Basics page.

Post-launch Items

• Once your form is live, and gifts start coming it, you'll want to track progress on your School Dashboard
• To learn more creating and pulling reports, check out the Reporting section of GCU
• We recommend you make a few test gifts to double check the donor experience and notification emails
  • You can refund gifts via the Manage Gifts page
  • If Stripe is your payment processor, learn more about making Stripe test gifts
• Replace the link of your Give Now button on your website with your new GiveCampus form
  • Pro Tip: Use one of your Unique Links created in the form's settings, so you can track clicks, dollars and donors from each source

Get help when you need some Support

• For real-time help, use the search box in the bottom-right of the platform to find hundreds of GCU articles
• Check out all of the Giving Forms articles here
• Still stuck? Write to us at support@givecampus.com. Be sure to include the name or link of the form you're working on
• For big strategic decisions, consult your GiveCampus Partner Success Manager