A Guide to Getting Started

Create donation appeal forms - quickly and easily!

Add an Appeal Coordinator: Confirmation emails will list your coordinator's contact details and, as well, use their email as the 'From' email address displayed in each donor's inbox.
Create optional targeting giving programs on your donation appeal page, to give donors a choice of funds to which they wish to designate their donations.
Now you're ready to Add an Appeal!

The wizard will walk you through each section and page, step-by-step.

Setup : Set the details of your Appeal, including...
- If you have asked us to setup multiple template designs to match various micro-site designs, you can specify which template is used for this appeal.
- If your merchant accounts process multiple currencies, you can define the currencies display on this donation appeal form.
- Determine if donations made through this appeal are tax receiptable.
Sections : Customize the sections of your appeal form:
- Determine the personal information collected from donors.
- If you wish to provide donors a choice of funds to which their donation can be targeted, you can include as many Targeted Giving Programs as required.
- Optionally, add an In Tribute section to allow donors to make a donation in memory or in honour of someone.
- Optionally, specify suggested donation amounts by donation frequency (one-time, monthly, quartely) Contribution Amount section.
- Use the Ask Questions section to gather more donor information or give a space for feedback. Examples:
  - Please send us a message. We appreciate any feedback. Thank you!
  - Are you interested in volunteering?
  - Please inform me if my company has a matching gift program. My company's name is:
Pages : Control the order of the sections. Appeal forms can be single page or you can put sections on different pages.
Messages: Customize your on-screen confirmation message and Thank You email.

Update & launch your Appeal

When changing an Appeal once it has been saved, click Update & Next on every page you modify, and don't forget to click Save as Active/Draft to save your changes.
Next, preview & test your donation appeal form.
When you're ready to launch your appeal form on your website simply activate the Appeal and then insert your appeal URL link into your website.

Save time and resources through website automation

Why waste time and resources processing credit cards and thank you messages manually? For Canadian charities issuing tax receipts, is issuing printed tax receipts for Canadian donations an extra burden at tax time?

With GiftTool,

Credit cards are instantly authenticated / processed, and your donors are automatically thanked with a personalized email.
Your reports are automatically updated when an online donation is made, and can be easily downloaded in Excel at any time.
For Canadian charities, you can track down any eTax Receipt at a moments notice, and send an electronic copy to a donor who has lost their original. Or instantly issue eTax Receipts for Canadian donations received offline from your other activities.

Boost donations by encouraging recurring donations

Recurring monthly & quarterly donors can greatly add to your long-term fundraising efforts. These donors are valuable supporters of your cause. We encourage you to provide donors the option to contribute monthly and/or quartlerly in your set up. This option can either appear on the same appeal form, or create a separate appeal form specifically for recurring donations.

The recurring payment will be processed for the first time when a donor submits their donation, and will repeat on the monthly or quarterly anniversary of that date.

If you have a list of recurring donors, you can add a recurring donor in the GiftTool BackOffice to have the donations processed automatically on a recurring basis on the date that you specify.

Setup tips