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How To Set Up Custom Donation Fields
How To Set Up Custom Donation Fields
Jenna Notarfrancesco avatar
Written by Jenna Notarfrancesco
Updated over a week ago

Custom fields allow you to ask donors questions or collect additional info during the donation process. Here are a few examples of what you can do with this feature:

  • Allow donors to donate on behalf of someone (great for corporate giving).

  • Find out the best way to connect with donors (email, social media, etc).

  • Ask donors for their t-shirt size if you’re running an athletic event.

  • Enter in names and contact information for multiple attendees of an event under one donor.

  • Figure out where donors heard about your campaign/organization (through a friend, online, etc).

  • Select a perk or raffle the donor would prefer.

  • Add hidden, internal fields attached to the donation for data and reporting.

To set up custom donation fields, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Login to your CauseVox Admin account and enter into your campaign's settings. Under Sites & Forms select, the titled or untitled form under Donation Forms.

Step 2: Select Custom Fields in the left navigation bar.

Step 3: Select from our available custom fields. To use one of the fields on your form, just toggle the field to blue. You can hide the field from the form by toggling to gray and Save.

Select from our pre-created custom fields:

  • Subscribe to Updates: Adds a section to the donation form for donors to opt into updates from your organization.

  • Company Name: Adds an optional field for donors to enter a company name in addition to their first/last name (ex. donation made on behalf of Company)

  • Anonymous Donation: Adds a section to the donation form to mark the donation as anonymous. 3 options are presented to donors.

  • Postal Address: Adds a section to the donation form to gather postal information from your donors.

  • Tributes: Adds a section to the donation form to specify an in honor or in memory donation.

Step 4: To add your own custom question, scroll down and select Create Custom Field.

Step 5: Enter the Field Type and Field Information.

If you wish to create your own custom question, you can determine the field type:

  • Text Input: A single line text input.

  • Text Area: A multi-line text box for longer content.

  • Dropdown: A dropdown to select from multiple values.

  • Checkbox: A simple checkbox with a label. Good for binary options like yes/no.

  • Hidden: A hidden field with a value that will be set when saved. This field value is not shown publicly on the donation form. Good to pass along specific information that isn't visible to the end user.

  • You can make the field required by checking off the Required checkbox.

  • For long questions, use the Title field to enter a sentence or paragraph question. Use the Help Text and Placeholder fields to provide additional guidance.

Step 6: Use the Advanced checkbox if you wish to expose the custom fields in the public API. Learn more about making the field public.

When you've finished setting up your custom fields, you can toggle to the preview section in the upper right corner to see how it will look on your donation form.

Live payments are disabled on the donation form preview.

Public Custom Fields

The advanced public field option enables "public" custom field answers to be displayed in site modules for search or filtering purposes.

Making a field public does not affect how the custom field question is displayed on the donation form. The term "public" here refers to the custom field responses available to be made public in site modules for filtering within the site.

We don't recommend making the field public if:

  • The question that you're asking is about private information that cannot be shown publicly and is only intended for internal use by your organization. This could be information such as phone, postal address, or any financial details, etc.

We recommend making the field public if:

  • The question's response can be shown publicly. This could be information such as a program area the donor is funding, how they heard about the organization, participation levels within the organization, etc.

Additional Notes

  • Any question can be made required or optional, and checkbox fields can be checked by default.

  • You’ll be able to view your custom fields on the second page of your donation form.

  • You’ll be able to see a donor’s custom field answers on their donation record in CauseVox as well as in the donation export.

  • Hidden fields will be viewable in donation records and the donation export.

  • Custom fields are available on the Standard Plan and above.

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