Designations

Every donation in Fundraise Up must be linked to a designation. When you create a new campaign, it automatically uses your organization’s default designation set in Settings > Campaigns > Default designation.

You can then customize how designations appear to supporters in a specific campaign.

Go to Campaigns > [Your campaign] > Settings > Designations to configure how designations work in your campaign.

The campaign is linked to one predefined designation. Supporters cannot change it. You can choose whether it is:

• Visible on checkout. The designation is shown but locked.
• Hidden on checkout. The designation is applied automatically and not displayed during checkout.

Checkout Modal with a locked designation “Provide a child with hot meals for a month”

Supporters see a list of available designations and must select one before completing their donation. You can configure how the list behaves:

• Default selection. One option is preselected, but supporters can change it.
• No default. The field is empty, and supporters must choose before proceeding.

Checkout Modal with a list of designations for supporters to choose from

For Campaign Pages, supporters can select up to 5 designations within one payment and allocate specific amounts to each. All selected designations must share the same donation frequency and currency. See the “Multiple designations” section below for a full explanation.

You can organize designations as simple lists or create hierarchical structures with up to 3 levels. This hierarchy helps supporters navigate complex organizational structures and find the specific programs they want to support.

For example, an educational institution might organize designations like this:

• Student Support
  • Scholarships
    • First-Generation Student Scholarships
    • STEM Student Support
    • Athletics Scholarships
  • Campus Programs
    • Library Expansion Project
    • Student Mental Health Services

While you can create groups to organize designations, supporters can only donate to individual designations — not to the groups themselves. Groups serve as organizational tools to help supporters navigate your designation options. In the example above, bold text represents groups, and italic text represents the individual designations supporters can donate to.

You can create designations directly when editing a campaign. However, it’s often more convenient to prepare them in advance in the Designations manager, where you can create both designations and groups for reuse across multiple campaigns.

You can enable the Multiple designations option on your Campaign Pages. This lets supporters select up to 5 designations and specify individual amounts for each.

While the supporter makes just one payment, each selected designation is processed as a separate donation. This means:

• Each designation has its own donation record and generates its own receipt.
• For recurring donations, each designation creates an independent recurring plan that can be managed separately after the first installment. Changes to one recurring plan do not affect the others.

All designations in a single payment use the same donation frequency and currency. For example, supporters can’t combine a one-time donation with a monthly recurring donation or mix USD and EUR amounts in the same payment.

Campaign Page with three $10 designations selected and a search box to add another

When supporters choose multiple designations and opt to cover fees, fees are calculated separately for each designation and then combined — but only for the first installment. From the second installment onward, each recurring donation is processed independently with its own transaction and fee calculation.

Designation frequency options depend on your campaign settings and individual designation configurations. Campaigns can support up to two frequencies (such as one-time and monthly), and individual designations inherit these settings by default.

You can override frequency settings for specific designations — for example, restricting certain designations to one-time donations only or making others available exclusively for recurring plans.

If your campaign has minimum donation amounts, these apply to each designation individually. For example, if the minimum for the campaign is $5, each selected designation must receive at least $5.

Multiple designations are available on Campaign Pages only. The Checkout Modal supports single designation selection.

Elements inherit designation settings from their associated campaigns. If a campaign uses selectable designations, supporters can search and choose from available options within Elements as well.

Designation data syncs automatically with connected CRM systems, exports, and API integrations. Each designation creates a separate donation record, and integration data passes through as usual.

Within your Dashboard, you can view all related donations from the same payment by going to Donations and opening any individual donation page. A Donations in this payment section appears for donations that are part of multiple designation payments.

“Donations in this payment” section showing all designations selected for this payment

Here are some ways organizations can use designations in different fundraising contexts:

• University and college fundraising. Schools can encourage bigger gifts from alumni by letting them split a donation between athletics, scholarships, research, or campus projects — all without going through checkout multiple times. This makes giving easier and often results in higher totals, especially during annual drives or big fundraising events.
• Multi-program nonprofit organizations. Organizations running several initiatives can cut down on abandoned donations by letting supporters choose how much goes to emergency relief, day-to-day operations, or specific programs in a single transaction. It helps meet funding goals across all areas at once.
• Faith-based fundraising. Religious organizations can make it simple for members to support building funds, missions, youth programs, and general needs in one go. For example, during Ramadan, Muslim organizations can let supporters split their Zakat between different eligible causes.
• Humanitarian and disaster relief. Aid organizations can meet more urgent needs by letting supporters give to food aid, shelter, medical help, and reconstruction in one donation. It matches supporters intent and shows a broader impact.
• Cultural and membership-based organizations. Museums, theaters, and arts groups can boost support by letting patrons give to exhibitions, education programs, facility upgrades, and general operations — all through a single giving experience.

• Learn how to create and manage designations.
• Learn how to add designations to your campaigns.