A gift acknowledgement is the email a donor receives to thank them for a gift and confirm the details. You build it once as a template, then use it in two places: automatically on a payment page, or manually from a gift you have logged.
Creating a gift acknowledgement template
Go to Emails > Templates and click + Add New.
Choose Gift Acknowledgement under Donors. It is built for this purpose, so it is set up to pull in the donation details rather than being a blank email you have to assemble yourself.
Give the template a name, write the subject and body, and save it.
Your site comes with Default Gift Acknowledgement, subject "Donation Receipt," already published. You can use it as it is, or create your own so the wording sounds like your organization.
Writing the acknowledgement
Use merge fields so each donor sees their own details rather than generic text.
A good acknowledgement usually covers three things: thanks, what the gift will do, and the details the donor needs for their records.
Using it on a payment page
To acknowledge online gifts automatically, attach the template to the payment page.
Open the page under Fundraising > Payment Pages, go to the Communication tab, tick Enable email confirmations for successful transactions, and choose your template under Email Template.
Every donor who gives through that page now receives the acknowledgement automatically. Add an address under BCC Recipients if you want a copy for your records.
Sending it from a logged gift
For gifts you record by hand, such as a check or a stock transfer, send the acknowledgement from the gift itself.
Open the donor's record and go to the Activity tab.
Expand the gift and open the Receipts tab.
Under Send an acknowledgement, choose your template.
Click Preview to check it, then Send.
Anything you send is listed under ISSUED on that tab, so you have a record of what went out and when.
The same tab also generates a printable receipt as a .pdf or .doc, using the templates in Settings > Receipt Templates. Those are two different things: the receipt is a document you produce, the acknowledgement is an email you send.
Which route to use
Gift arrived | How it gets acknowledged |
Through a payment page | Automatically, if the template is attached on the Communication tab |
Logged by hand | Manually, from the Receipts tab on the gift |
The two are independent. Attaching a template to a payment page does nothing for gifts you enter yourself, and sending from a gift is a one-off that does not change any page's settings.