Inherited donor-covered fee settings

Donor-covered payment processing fees let donors add an optional amount to their gift. Enabling the feature does not make fee coverage mandatory, even if you choose Opt Out.

Enable or disable the school-wide setting

1. Open Online Giving → School-Level Settings → Donation Form.
2. Find the Donor Covered Fees section. Older instructions may call this a separate Donor Covered Fees settings page; the current navigation places it under Donation Form.
3. Select Enable Donor Covered Fees across Giving Forms and Campaigns. Clear it to disable the school-wide setting.
4. Choose Opt In to start with an unchecked donor checkbox, or Opt Out to start checked. Donors can still uncheck it.
5. Click Save, then preview an eligible giving form or campaign checkout.

These school settings are available to Superadmin, Fundraising Superadmin, Finance Admin, and School-Level Settings Admin. These are built-in roles; partners do not switch on a separate fee-setting permission within a role.

How school and form settings interact

A campaign or form with Inherit School-Wide Donor Covered Fee settings selected follows the school setting. An eligible form with its own override follows that override instead. Changing the school setting does not replace every form-specific override. If a form behaves differently, check its inheritance setting before assuming the school change failed.

For one form, open Online Giving → Campaigns or Forms → select the campaign or form → Giving Experience → Form Settings & Display → Form Settings, then find Payment Settings. See how to inherit or override the fee setting.

Availability and missing controls

The school-wide self-service setting is for schools using Stripe and eligible Online Giving checkouts. It is not an event-ticket fee setting, and the standard gift fee checkbox is not offered when creating a match or challenge. If the section is absent, have an administrator with one of the roles above check the school's payment setup and contact Support if needed. A missing setting is not proof that donor fees are disabled.

All current DAFpay gifts support optional donor-covered fees. The Stripe school-settings requirement does not mean DAFpay donors must be excluded. See DAFpay fee coverage and rounding.

What enabling it changes

The donor pays the gift plus any optional coverage amount selected. This is separate from the institution's contracted processing charges; enabling coverage does not waive those charges. The standard setting describes 3.2% coverage, but the checkout's displayed dollar amount is what the donor reviews before submitting. See the donor experience and calculation.

Recurring gifts, refunds and completed gifts

• For recurring gifts, the saved coverage amount carries into automatic installments; donors are not prompted again each time. Changing the installment amount removes coverage from future installments. See edit or cancel a recurring gift.
• A full refund of an eligible Stripe gift includes the donor-covered amount in that payment. This does not mean every processor charge paid by the institution is returned. Partial refunds and other processors require separate review. A transaction cannot be refunded while it is in dispute. See full Stripe refunds and donor-covered fees.
• Coverage cannot be added to a completed payment by editing a field and recharging the old card. A separately authorized additional gift is a new payment. See coverage after a completed gift.