How to use Donation Options

Donation options are the building blocks of your Fundraising Pages, whether donors give on the page itself or on a page you've embedded on your website. Each one sets out a giving choice: how much a donor can give, how often, and which account the gift goes to. It can also include an image and a short description, so supporters know exactly what their gift does.

Examples of donation options

Before creating your first donation option, give some thought to what options you'd like your supporters to see when they visit your fundraising page.

All organizations have one donation option by default: a basic donation that can be made in any amount, either one-time or every month, with no goods or services received in exchange. For some organizations, this may be all you need. Others might choose to create multiple options with different parameters.

Example

For example, let's say you want to create a fundraising page with three defined giving tiers to encourage support at those levels. You plan to define them as:

• Supporter: $100 (donors receive a branded tote bag as a gift)
• Leader: $500 (donors receive a branded insulated mug as a gift)
• Champion: $1000 (donors receive tickets to fundraising gala)

You might also want to include an option inviting recurring donations:

• Sustaining Member: recurring monthly donation at any level

And, of course, you have your default donation option where supporters can give any amount they choose. So that would be a total of 5 donation options to include in your fundraising page.

How do I set up Donation Options in my MonkeyPod?

Get started by choosing Donation Options from the Fundraising menu.

If you have any donation options already created, they will be displayed here. To create a new one, select Add a donation option.

Basics

Enter the basic information first:

• Name: Name of the donation option. For an ongoing monthly donation, you may want to use a name like "I would like to become a sustaining member" or "I want to support your organization every month"
• Description: The description of the donation option. For the example above, this would be something like "make a monthly donation"
• Image:  A small image to appear alongside the donation option on the fundraising page or embedded donation form. Image must be at least 240×240 pixels even though it will be displayed smaller. Larger images keep donation tier icons looking sharp on Retina and other high-density screens. Use a PNG if your image has a transparent background.

Together, the name, description and image are what donors see when they choose a donation option on your Fundraising Page:

Amount to Charge

Next, select the amount to charge for this donation option.

• Fixed amount: All donations are a fixed amount (e.g. every donor gives $100).
• Pre-set list: Donors choose a donation from a list of pre-defined amounts.

• Allow donor to enter a different amount: Donations can be any amount that the donor enters.

  Setting a minimum amount: When donors can enter their own amount, you can set a minimum amount so no one gives less than you'd like. The Minimum Amount box appears once you switch on Allow donor to enter a different amount.  Leave it blank if you don't need a minimum.

• Partial Deductibility: You can also indicate if donors are receiving something of value and therefore what portion of their donation is not tax deductible.

Example: Let's say you're setting up a "Supporter" option where donors give $100 and they receive a tote bag worth $10. That setup, shown here, would include choosing the option to "Charge a specific fixed amount" and enter "$100" as the amount, along with partial deductibility settings to show the $10 value of the tote bag.

Subscriptions / Recurring Transactions

Next, choose whether the donation option can be given as a one-time gift, a monthly recurring gift, an annual recurring gift, or any combination of these. Donors can choose from every frequency you switch on.

If you offer more than one frequency, a Default Frequency setting appears, listing just the frequencies you've turned on. Pick the one you'd like donors to start on. They can still switch to another frequency before they give.

If you leave Default Frequency empty, donors start on one-time (if offered), then monthly, then annual. If you later switch off the frequency you chose as the default, the setting clears and goes back to that order.

Accounting

The final step in setting up a donation option is to choose which account in your chart of accounts will receive the donation. If you need to change the default account, select the edit icon and then choose from other contributed income accounts available in the list. 

Select Save and the newly created donation option will appear in your list of options.

You would repeat that process for each donation option needed.

Editing or archiving donation options

If you have a donation option that is no longer used on an active fundraising page, you may choose to archive it by clicking the archive icon. Archived donation options are not listed as available choices when building fundraising pages. They may be restored if needed, by clicking the restore icon (visible once an option is archived).

To make changes to a donation option, select the edit icon on the right side of the page.

Frequently Asked Questions

I'm looking for an option to have donors cover the payment processing fees, where can I find that?

If you're looking for an option to ask donors to cover payment processing fees, that is done through the Fundraising Page settings, not the donation option.

What types of payment are accepted through these donation options? Where can I set that?

Payment methods are set by your Fundraising Page, not the donation option. Once your Stripe account is connected to your MonkeyPod, your Fundraising Pages accept credit and debit cards, ACH bank payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay. That's true whether donors give on the page itself or on a page embedded on your website. For an embedded page, just add your website to Allowed Domains on the page's Embed tab so Apple Pay and Google Pay can appear. See How to Embed a Fundraising Page on Your Website for the details.

Still using an older Donation Form (Embed)? Those accept credit and debit cards and ACH payments.

I would like to import my Monthly Donors to MonkeyPod. Which donation options should I choose?

Check out this article on How to Migrate Recurring Donors.

Can donors give to more than one donation option in a single gift?

Yes! Switch on Allow donors to select more than one donation option on the page's Giving Options tab. Donors can then check several options, like your Scholarship Fund and your General Fund, and choose an amount for each one. Each option's own minimum still applies, and donors choose one frequency for the whole gift from the frequencies every checked option offers.

Pages using the Old School template let donors choose only one option per gift.