Donor Portal

Learn about the Donor Portal and how to configure it for your organization.

The Donor Portal is a self-service dashboard where your supporters can manage their fundraisers and recurring plans, view their donation history, and update their profile information. Donors access the Donor Portal using a secure magic link, which is emailed to them each time they want to view their dashboard. The approach removes the need for supporters to maintain login credentials that can be easily forgotten. The Donor Portal is automatically enabled for all supporters and cannot be disabled from the Dashboard.

Take a look: Donor Portal demo

There are four objects that surface properties in Donor Portal. Some of the values for these properties can be modified by the supporter. These modifiable properties are listed below:

Object Properties
Donations Status, donation amount, donation date, payment method, comment, PDF receipt
Recurring Status, donation amount, next payment (date), payment method, comment, cover transaction costs, frequency, installment charge date
Supporters First name, last name, email
Fundraisers Total raised, page views, donations, goal, goal date, display name, fundraiser photo, personal message, end date, role (group)

When a supporter makes changes to any of the above properties in their Donor Portal, the changes are also reflected in the Fundraise Up Dashboard.

Settings

 
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The Donor Portal is configured from the Donor Portal page in your Fundraise Up Dashboard settings.

URL settings

 
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The Portal URL is the web address used for the Donor Portal and for your organization’s Campaign Pages. By default, the Donor Portal and the Campaign Page are hosted for your organization on a random subdomain connected to the donorsupport.co domain, which is operated by Fundraise Up. The Portal URL can be modified to use a customized subdomain name hosted at donorsupport.com, or set to use a custom domain configured by your organization.

  • Fundraise Up domain: This setting lets you configure a custom subdomain connected to the donorsupport.co domain. For example, your customized Portal URL using this method could be mycharity.donorsupport.co.
  • Custom domain: Using the custom domain setting enables you to make the Donor Portal and your Campaign Pages available at a web address that you manage. For example, portal.mycharity.org. This approach allows for a fully white-labeled implementation of the Donor Portal and Campaign Pages. Configuring a custom domain requires access to your domain’s DNS settings. The configuration steps for this approach are described below.
    Only subdomains (e.g. portal.mycharity.org) may be used when the Custom domain setting is selected. Second-level domains (e.g. mycharity.org) cannot be used.

DNS settings for custom domains

When you use a custom domain for a Portal URL, you add a CNAME record to your DNS configuration. This enables you to point your custom domain to a Fundraise Up server destination. Create the CNAME record using the following values:

Name [your subdomain]
Type CNAME
Target domain.donorsupport.co

Donor Portal Appearance

 
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Donor Portal can be customized to include a custom browser image (favicon) and hero image. The configuration options for these customizations are described below.

Browser icon (favicon)

  • Minimum resolution: 32 x 32px
  • Recommended resolution: 64 x 64px

Hero image

  • Minimum resolution: 930 x 408px
  • Recommended resolution: 1,860 x 816px

Homepage message

The homepage message is displayed under the hero image in Donor Portal. The message includes a title and description that can be customized to use your own text. Both text fields can include personalization merge tags.

We recommend using the homepage message to provide supporters with information about how they can use Donor Portal to manage their giving, and to include contact details such as a support email address, phone number, or web page link.

Localization

When Localization is enabled, the homepage message can be translated into any supported and enabled language. To modify the translations used for the homepage message, select the Language option in the Homepage message section of Donor Portal settings.

Donor Portal recurring donation settings

 
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These Donor Portal settings control the display of retention features. These features are designed to reduce the number of supporters who cancel recurring plans. By default, Fundraise Up configures your account with the optimal settings for retention. The options for these settings are described below.

Recurring donation cancellation

  • Supporter can cancel in Donor Portal: this option allows a supporter to cancel their recurring plan from the Donor Portal. We recommend leaving this setting enabled because it can reduce the number of support phone calls and email exchanges that your organization has to handle from supporters wishing to cancel their recurring plans.
  • Supporter required to contact organization or submit feedback form: this option displays customizable instructions to supporters that prompt them to contact you outside of Donor Portal if they wish to cancel their recurring plans. When this option is selected, a textarea input will be displayed for customizing the instructions you want to show supporters.

Reduce recurring donation amount

  • Supporter can reduce amount in Donor Portal: This option allows a supporter to reduce the donation amount of their recurring plan directly in Donor Portal. We recommend leaving this setting enabled because it can reduce the number of support phone calls and email exchanges that your organization has to handle from supporters wishing to modify their recurring plans.
  • Supporter is required to contact the organization or submit a feedback form: This option displays customizable instructions to supporters that prompt them to contact you outside of Donor Portal if they wish to modify their recurring plans. When this option is selected, a textarea input will be displayed for customizing the instructions you want to show supporters.

Supporter can edit their personal information

Uncheck this box to stop supporters from being able to edit their name, email address, mailing address and phone number in the Donor Portal.

Supporter can pause recurring gifts (skip installments)

This option, which is enabled by default, enables a supporter to pause recurring plan installment charges for a certain period of time. Supporters can select from the following pause durations:

  • 1 month
  • 3 months
  • 1-12 months (user-selectable)

A fourth option enables a supporter to cancel their donation without further prompts.

Show donation history in the Donor Portal

 
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This checkbox lets your organization decide whether to let supporters see their donation history in the Donor Portal. By default, this information is shown to supporters.

The donation history of recurring plans can still be found in the Donor Portal when the supporter clicks through to see the details of that recurring donation plan, regardless of this setting.

Understanding retention prompts

 
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When the default settings for recurring donations are applied and a supporter attempts to cancel a recurring plan, they will be shown the following retention prompts in an attempt to reduce the change of cancellation.

  1. The supporter is prompted to change the donation amount of their recurring donation

    If the supporter selects Change donation amount, they will be shown a screen for modifying the donation amount.

    If the supporter selects Just cancel my donation

  2. The supporter is prompted to pause their recurring plan

    If the supporter selects a pause duration, the recurring plan will temporarily pause installment charges until the pause duration has lapsed.

    If the supporter selects Just cancel my donation, the recurring plan will be canceled

    Recurring plans that have been canceled can be reactivated by a supporter at any time from within Donor Portal.

Receipts in the Donor Portal

 
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On the Receipts page, your supporters can find and download all the latest versions of their donation receipts. This includes both annual and individual receipts.

If changes are made that will impact the information shown on a receipt, the receipt in the Donor Portal is updated automatically.

Receipts are generated based on the settings you choose in your Dashboard Settings. They can be found here in the Donor Portal even if they’re not distributed to supporters via email.

Download all receipts

 
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The Receipts page also has an option to download all receipts. When this option is selected, a supporter can choose any year in which they’ve donated and download a zipped file of individual donation receipts for that year. For annual receipts that span two calendar years, the date of the first donation included in the receipt determines the year.

Donor Portal preview

 
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This area of Donor Portal settings displays an option for previewing the customizations made to Donor Portal. Selecting the View Donor Portal button will launch Donor Portal in a new window. Fictitious data will be displayed on the Donor Portal preview page. This enables you to see how various objects are represented within Donor Portal. The preview version of Donor Portal is accessible from [your Portal URL]/demo.

Donor Portal throughout the platform

 
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Because various features are represented in Donor Portal, settings that apply to the Donor Portal can often be found elsewhere in the Dashboard. For example, some of their customization options for Fundraisers are configured from the Fundraisers-related sections of the campaign’s settings.

Users with the Organization Administrator, Campaign Administrator, and Support Specialist roles can access the Donor Portal through the Open Donor Portal button on the Supporter page.

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