Designation Features & Functionality

This article reviews the various designation features available for your Giving Forms and Social Fundraising campaign forms. This functionality makes it easier for schools to offer more designations that are easier for donors to find. Here’s a rundown of these features and how to ensure you’re taking advantage of them.

What Are The Features?

Easy Browsing: To save your donors time as they browse available designations, we’ve removed the double drop down experience and replaced it with nested browsing. This reduces the number of clicks required to select a designation from a group (formerly called tier 2 designations). This new feature is especially helpful for donors that want to select multiple designations from the same group or tier. 

Enhanced Search: Donors can search for their designations of choice without knowing what designation group (formerly called tier) they live within. They can search globally, meaning regardless of whether it’s the name of a designation group or the designation itself, the search bar will return all matches to your provided text, saving donors time and moving them to complete their gift quicker. 

Visibility: You can set designations to be visible or not on the designation dropdown but still searchable. This is a great way to minimize choice overload for your donors while still allowing them to search for what they care about most. To hide individual designations, you can uncheck the 'Visible in Dropdown' checkbox, as seen below under Campaign Settings > Giving Experience > Form Settings & Display > Designation Configuration. To bulk hide all or show all designations, you can click 'Set Visibility' to apply changes to all of the designations on a form/campaign.

Shopping Cart Functionality: Much like shopping online, donors can add unlimited gifts to their ‘shopping cart’ while searching designations, encouraging donors to give to all areas they are passionate about. This will increase their overall donation amount. To do this, donors simply click the “+” symbol beside the relevant designations as seen below.

Highlighting, Pinning, and Pre-Selecting: You have a few options on how to display designations more prominently on forms and campaigns! Check out this article to go in more detail on how to make those changes and how they impact the form.

What If I Am Not Using Designation Groups?

Now is a great time to start! In order to take full advantage of these new features, you’ll want to set up designation groups. This will improve the ease of creating your giving forms as well as the experience for your donors. You can learn how more about designation groups and how to create them in this GCU article.

Troubleshooting Match Designation Settings

If you've set up a match that's applying to all donors but should only apply to gifts for a specific designation, here's how to fix it:

How to Update Match Designation Targeting

1. Go to your Campaign Settings → Motivation & Sharing → Matches & Challenges

2. Click the pencil/edit icon next to the match you want to update

3. Scroll down to the Match/Challenge Information section

4. Check the box labeled "Directed"

5. Choose your specific designation from the dropdown menu

6. Save your changes

Common Match Configuration Issues

Problem: Match is applying to all gifts when it should only apply to one designation

Solution: Make sure the "Directed" checkbox is checked and the correct designation is selected

Problem: Can't find the designation in the dropdown

Solution: Verify the designation has been added to your campaign/form in the Designation Configuration settings

Common Variations of This Question

• How to restrict a match to one fund only
• Match applying to all designations instead of one
• How to make a match designation-specific
• Fixing match that's triggering for wrong fund
• Update match to target specific designation

Creating Write-In Designations

How to Set Up Write-In Designations

Write-in designations allow donors to specify additional details about their gift designation. The write-in setting is configured when creating the designation at the school level.

Steps to create a write-in designation:

1. Go to Online Giving > School-Level Settings > Designations
2. Click "Add New Designation"
3. Enter the designation name and backend identifier (optional)
4. Check the box: "Make this a write-in designation"
5. Save the designation

Adding Write-In Designations to Forms and Campaigns

Once created, add the write-in designation to your forms and campaigns:

1. Go to your form or campaign's Designation Configuration
2. Click "Add Designations"
3. Search for and select your write-in designation
4. The designation will appear with a text field for donor input

How Write-In Designations Work for Donors

When donors select a write-in designation:

• They see the designation name you created
• An additional text field appears for them to provide specifics
• Example: "Scholarship Fund" designation with write-in field for "Specify scholarship name"

Important Notes

• Write-in status cannot be added to an existing designation
• Write-in responses appear in your gift reporting and can be exported
• The designation itself must be created at the school level before being added to forms