Setting up Donation Form Templates

Donation Templates serve as the configuration settings for donation forms you use on your website. They govern how the forms look and behave on your site, what kinds of fields are displayed on the form, what campaign, appeal, and fund (if any) are attributed to donations processed via the forms, and who gets alerted when a donation is made through these forms. They also determine the content of the informal (and immediate) confirmation pages and emails that donors view when their donation is processed successfully.

IMPORTANT: If you plan on accepting credit cards or eChecks (ACH) and processing them with these forms, you must set up Authorize.net before you add the form to your website. If you have not already done so and are intent on using Authorize.net, please follow these Steps to Setup Authorize.net. Do not proceed with the instruction below until that is completed. If you do not intend to use Authorize.net, then you may proceed with the steps below now.

Setting up your Donation Template

From the Dashboard:

1. Go to Donations > Other Donation Tools > Donation Form Templates
   
   
2. Click the New button
   
   
   • The Title and Description are only viewed in the BigSIS admin (no public user will ever see these items when they fill out a public donation form on your website).
   • The Custom Form field allows you to add any custom fields you want to the donation form.
   • The Default Campaign, Default Fund, and Default Appeal fields (each of which is optional) determine how to track donations made via this form. Any donation processed via this form on your organization's website will be attributed to the campaign, fund, and appeal you select here. Admins who fill out the internal form can override any of these settings when they are entering a donation via the internal form.
   • The Success Page Messages allow you to craft a HTML web page that is displayed immediately after a donor submits their donation and it goes through successfully. You may use these fields to display different messages depending on the type of donation that was made by the donor (e.g., one message for one-time gifts, a separate message for pledges, etc.). You do not have to use distinct messages for these pages, though, you may elect to use the same message no matter what type of donation is made if you wish. It's up to you!
   • The Confirmation Emails allow you to craft HTML emails that are sent to a donor's inbox immediately after they submit their donation and it goes through successfully AND after each subsequent installment is paid on a pledge or recurring gift. You may use these fields to send different emails depending on the type of donation that was made and the type of payment that was made by the donor (e.g., one email for one-time gifts, a separate email for pledges, etc.). For pledges and recurring gifts, donors may receive one email when the donation is created and then subsequent emails whenever an installment payment is made on the pledge or recurring gift. Note: These are not the same as the more formal thank you letters you can generate with the Thank Yous tools. To generate formal thank letters that you can print and send to donors, you need to go to Donations > Thank Yous.
     
     
3. Once you create a donation template, you may edit it and tweak additional settings including who gets alerted when a donation is made via this form and whether you wish to create giving levels for this form. Giving levels allow you to set pre-determined amounts for donations along with a title/rank that viewers can see. For example, you may set a pre-determined amount of $50 and if a user selects that level, they may be awarded the "Bronze" title and then you may set a second amount of $100 with the title of "Silver," so on and so forth. Giving levels are entirely optional.
   
   
4. Once the donation template is completed and you are ready to display the form on your website, you may hand off the iframe code to your webmaster so that they can install it on your website.
   
   
   • IMPORTANT: If you plan on accepting credit cards or eChecks (ACH) and processing them with these forms, you must set up Authorize.net before you add the form to your website. If you have not already done so and are intent on using Authorize.net, please follow these Steps to Setup Authorize.net. Do not proceed with the instruction below until that is completed. If you do not intend to use Authorize.net, then you may proceed with the steps below now.
     
     
5. Once you are ready to embed the form on your website, save the template and generate the URL that will be used in the iframe. This URL will be created for you just by creating the donation template. Here is an example of a URL:
   https://conversaracademy.bigsis.com/forms/embed/donation/Annual Fund 20-21
   
   Click here to learn more about Help Finding your Calendar, Inquiry, and Online Donation URLs.
   
   
6. Once you save the template you will also have an Embed code for embedding on your website. There will be an example that will appear at the top of your Edit Donation Template screen for you to start with along with a Test Form option to let you see what your donation template will look like. Here is an example of what this will look like:
   (Right-click and "Open image in new tab" to enlarge)
   
   
   
   • IMPORTANT: We cannot give you a perfect iframe tag because there is no such thing. Your webmaster must determine how to style the iframe so that it looks good on your website, which may be very different from how another school styles their iframe to fit their website. The basics of an iframe are simple, it looks like this: 
     
     <iframe class="bigsis-iframe" src="https://conversaracademy.bigsis.com/forms/embed/donation/Annual Giving Campaign Template" width="99%" height="2500" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> 
     
     But we URGE you not to merely plug that tag into your website as is (at the very least, of course, change the domain from conversaracademy to the one for your specific school but that should not be the only adjustment you make to the tag). Your webmaster should tweak it and use CSS to make it work and look good on your site. This is not just any form that should be treated as an afterthought, it is a form that can make or break the decision by a donor to make a donation so we strongly encourage you and your webmaster to use best practices and craft the iframe styles correctly. Here is a link to a website you may find useful, it contains helpful tips on how to properly embed and style an iframe on your website so that it can work with your websit's responsive layout: link.