How To Set Up Donation Tiers (Legacy)

Set up customizable one-time, monthly recurring and pledge tiers to raise more year-round.

Rob Wu avatar
Written by Rob Wu
Updated over a week ago

Donation tiers are different levels of giving that your donors can choose from. Most of the time, it is presented as a list of donation amounts with corresponding descriptions for each amount.

Follow the steps below to set up your one-time, recurring and pledge tiers:

Step 1: Under Campaigns, search for the campaign you wish to edit and select the Settings (gear icon).

Step 2: Under Sites & Forms, select the donation form.

Step 3: Select General from the left navigation. At this point you can add titles to the form, including:

  • The name of the form visible to admin in the backend

  • Title

  • Subtitle (optional)

Step 4: Scroll down to Donation Types and select any combination of one-time, recurring, and/or pledge tiers, and Save.

Any donation type that is not selected will remain hidden. You can also default the donation type here which make the donation type pre-selected for the donor when they open the form.

Note: Currently recurring donations and pledges are only supported via Stripe.

Step 4 (optional): Enable Compact Tiers in the General Settings to remove descriptions from the tiers.

Here's an example of what compact donation tiers look like on the donation form:

Step 5: Select the donation type(s) from the left navigation, then select Add Tier to create your tiers.

Note: the first tier listed will be preselected.

If descriptions are left enabled, you can add descriptions to tie the donation to impact.

Here's an example of what descriptive donation tiers look like on the donation form:

Preview your form

When you've finished setting up your tiers, you can toggle to preview the form in the upper right corner.

Note: Live payments are disabled on the donation form preview.

Edit donation tiers

Edit donation tier values or descriptions at any time by selecting the pencil icon to the right. Delete tiers by selecting the trash can icon.

Drag and drop donation tiers to change the order in which they are listed.

Best Practices

  • We recommend creating about 3-6 donation tiers, so that your donors aren't overwhelmed with their options and it's easy to select in mobile. You’re also required to have at least 1 tier.

  • The average donation on CauseVox is about $78, so we recommend creating one tier that’s around that benchmark, and creating one over $150. However, if you know your average donation amount, we recommend creating your tiers based on your own data.

  • If you’re using the Impact Metric, which is a counter on your site that displays the units of impact your fundraising campaign has reached, it’s best to tie your tiers back to your units of impact.

  • You have the option to use descriptive tiers or compact tiers that eliminate the descriptions. If you choose to add descriptions, try to keep them relatively short to make it quicker for your donors to read.

There are few methods you can use when creating descriptive donation tiers:

Impact Units: Whether it's the number of people you reach, the items you can distribute, or the amount of time you can provide your services, tying donation tiers to impact can help your donors choose the amount they donate by the impact they create.

Recognition and Rewards: Donation tiers with different recognitions (ex: first donation tier gets a thank you email, second tier gets a handwritten note, etc) can help influence them to make a higher donation. You can also do physical rewards, but we recommend keeping the focus on impact or donor recognition whenever possible.

Titles: For when your campaign is not quantifiable in easy-to-consume terms, and you don’t want to take a rewards approach, you can always assign related titles to donors at different levels of giving.

While some organizations organize donation levels from bronze to platinum, it’s always engaging to try and relate your titles to your campaign’s theme.

Additional Notes

  • If you default recurring donations or pledges, the form will automatically display your recurring tiers first and the donor will have to select the one-time tiers to make a one-time donation.

  • Recurring donations allow you to take monthly recurring donations via your CauseVox campaign site. You can easily turn a small donation into a consistent stream of donations throughout the year.

  • Be sure to Enable the donation form in order to make it visible on your fundraising site or website and receive donations.

  • If you don't have Stripe set up yet, here's how you can set up Stripe for donation processing.

  • Your donation form automatically adds the option for your donors to enter Another Amount.

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