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Form Builder

Use the Form Builder to create or edit your fundraising form.

Top Left:

At the top left of the page you will find the form name, type and ID number. The name may be changed in the Form Basics area. (see more below.)

Top Right:

At the top right you will find four buttons:

Get the Form Link

This is used to retrieve the html link to post into your web site code. Depending on how you answer the embed question, you will see another pop-up box with the code and embed instructions.

Note: Your web master will need to be involved in posting the link to your web site.

Request a Custom URL

A custom URL is intended for use on a stand alone fundraising page -- one that opens in its own window or tab. A custom URL assigns your charity name and campaign name to the URL (aka link) you use for your donation page.

Related Content: Custom URLs

Preview This Form

Preview allows you to see what your changes will look like on your web site.

Note: If the link has been posted to your web site, your changes will be live as soon as you Save Changes. The only way to make in-progress changes invisible to your donors will be to temporarily remove the link from your web site.

Deactivate This Form

You cannot "delete" a form because forms are tied to your transactions and your reports. However, you can deactivate a form once a campaign is complete. This will not affect your reports.

Progress Bar Buttons:

If the charity has enabled the progress bar, you will see two additional buttons: Add A Transaction and View Added Transactions. These buttons are available to add cash or check transactions (not processed by GiveDirect) to a campaign goal so the actual money raised during the campaign is reflected correctly.

Related Content: Fundraising Progress Bar
The Sections:

To navigate through the Form Builder sections, click on a left menu item or click the arrow buttons to advance through the form section by section.

You will also see a note at the bottom of the edit pane to indicate the person and the date of the last modification to the form.

Note: Sharing login credentials between multiple persons renders this modification note ineffective. The best practice is to assign login credentials to each user. For more information, read the related Users and Roles article.

Creating or Updating Your Form

Charity Information

Charity Name:

This charity name is what the donor will see on your fundraising form.

The charity name that appears on your form does not have to be the same as your legal name. For example, you may find it beneficial to partner with another organization for a particular campaign. In such case you may want both organization names to appear on the form. Or you may choose to use your DBA instead of your legal name.

Email Notification:

We can send email notifications to only one email address. If you wish to have notifications go to multiple persons, consider using a shared email address or set up a forwarding rule in your email software.

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"Advanced" feature:

If you have signed up for CRM integration, you may connect your GiveDirect tansactions from a specific fundraising form with your CRM Campaign.

Click the Advanced link at the bottom of the Charity Information section, and input your CRM Campaign ID.

Figure 3a

Form Basics

These are the elements that will control the overall big picture look of your payment form: page background color or background image, form border color and font, etc.

Form Label:

This field is required and should be an identifying name unique to any other campaign name. This form name is not seen by your donors and is used only to identify transactions processed on this form.

Figure 4
Selecting Colors for your form:
  • Click into the field and a color-picker box will pop-up. (Figure 5)

  • You may select one of the basic colors from the left, or use your cursor and the slide bar to refine your selection.

  • Colors in this form builder are identified by RGB (Red, Green, Blue) rather than hex value. If you have trouble arriving at the exact desired color, go to any graphics program, (i.e., Photo 3D, it's free and included in windows software.) open the color picker tool and you will see the color displayed in RGB and Hex values.

  • Copy the numbers into the Form Builder RGB fields.

  • To add the new color into your custom color pallet, click the button "Add to Custom Colors" and you will see the new color in the Custom colors on the left. You may now select colors for the custom colors pallet and apply to other color fields in the other edit sections.
Figure 5

Figure 6

Header Image

If no image is displayed, use the Upload field at the top of the page to add your logo/graphic.

Only one graphic may be applied to this graphic place holder. If multiple graphics are desired, you may combine the images into a single file using a graphics program or you may use the Header Text area to add additional graphics.

Figure 7

Header Text

This is the text that appears at the top of the form (immediately beneath the logo). Use this section to provide a couple of sentences or a short paragraph to thank your donor or to provide summary campaign information or specific instructions.

Note: Most visitors to your payment form have already decided to give. We recommend you limit lengthy persuasive arguments or human-interest stories to your web site or social media accounts.

Figure 8

Amount Section

This section is set up with four standard amount buttons (your form will automatically include an "Other" amount button.) You may add additional buttons (up to 10) or delete extra buttons (down to one).

The amount fields will accept cents if you use the up/down arrows on the field.

Cover the Fee

This option allows your donor to cover the processing charges for you so the you receive the full intended donation amount. You may opt-out of offering this option to your donor, or you can make the fee cover required.

To make changes to this option, click the "Advanced" option on the right of the field. This will reveal three new options.

  • Fee Cover Label: If you change the verbiage of the field, DO NOT remove the "$x.xx." This is code required by the computer to calculate and display the amount of the Fee Cover. If the format of this element is changed or deleted, the field will not work correctly.

  • Check the Box by Default and Require Cover Fee:
    To opt-in to the Fee Cover by default, change the toggle switch to YES. Even if the option is checked by default, the donor will still have the ability to Opt-out of the fee (unless you have set the fee as Required.)
Figure 9

Figure 10

Custom Options

This section is mostly self-explanatory.

Salutation values may be changed to meet the requirements of your donor base. Use a comma to separate each salutation label.

Figure 11

Custom Fields

Custom fields include:

  • Text boxes: You ask a question and the donor supplies a response/answer in his own words.

  • Dropdown: A dropdown list allows the donor to make a selection form a list you provide. An individual list only allows for one option to be selected.

  • Checkbox: These allow your donor to opt-in or opt-out of something. For example, a newsletter or email updates, a gala or membership activity.

You have the option of adding up to three of each type of custom field to your form. These custom fields will appear between the Amount box and the Comments Field on the form. You may use these fields to request additional information from your contributors. These fields can be required or made voluntary.

Figure 12

Submit Button

This page is straight forward. Please see Form Basics above if you need assistance in assigning colors.

Figure 13

Footer Text

The optional Footer Text will display under the submit button.

Adding text here does not change the charity contact information listed in the colored part of the footer. (Figure 15)

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Figure 15

Thank You Page

This is the text that will display after a donation is processed. You may add one to two short sentences or paragraphs, links, or images using the text editor tools.

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Fundraising Progress Bar

The Progress Bar is a visual, sliding-bar graphic viewed on the donation page to help your donors see where you stand in meeting your campaign goal. The graphic has proven to encourage donations.

You may enter a goal amount or you may leave that blank for an unspecified goal amount.

You may also add a progress bar widget directly to the campaign page on your web site.

Please see the related article above.

Figure 17

Progress Bar Widget

Add a Progress Bar Widget On Your Website

In addition to having the fundraising progress bar on your payment form, you can also embed the progress bar directly onto a page on your own web site. Do this with a progress bar widget. See the examples from Building Futures Web Site.

The progress bar is automatically updated each time a donation is made to your campaign.

To get the embed code for the progress bar widget, just complete this request. The embed code snippet can normally be delivered to you within one business day.

The widget can also be shared with anyone who is fundraising for you so they can display the progress bar on their web site too.

Add a Progress Bar Widget On Facebook

If you have a savvy Facebook administrator, use a Facebook iframe app to display the progress bar on your Facebook page!

Figure 18

QR Code

Use the built in QR Code generator to obtain a QR Code for publishing on your website, campaign email, or printed materials. The code will be automatically linked to your campaign form.

Use the color pallate to change background and foreground colors to coordinate with your campaign. Click on either of the green "Save Changes" buttons to see how your color selections will look. Once satisified, click the "Download QR Code" button to create a jpg file.

Figure 19

Google Analytics and AdWords

Charities that invests in digital marketing will probably use Google Analytics and AdWords for campaign tracking. Both of these platforms are useful and provide good insights into the success or failure of your marketing efforts. Please see this Google post to learn the difference between AdWords and Analytics and how they may be used to assist your marketing efforts.

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Security

GiveDirect employs several methods to ensure security of our platform and donor and charity data. The one element the charity has some control over is the Captcha. This function is turned on by default. We recommend that it remain turned on, but if you have a donor that is experiencing difficulties completing a transaction because of the Captcha, we have provided the means for it to be disabled for a short period of time. Once your donor's transaction is complete we strongly recommend the Captcha be re-activated.

A Note of Caution: Since the charity does have control over the CAPTCHA, if it is turned off, and the charity experiences fraud that could have been prevented if the CAPTCHA had been engaged, the charity may be billed for any returned or charged back items at the rate of $25 per item.

Please read more about Captcha and security in the related articles.

Figure 21