Campaigns Overview
Your Campaigns are fundraisers. Whereas your Giving Forms are the checkout experience your donors will see while making their donation (selecting donation type and amount, and responding to your custom questions), your Campaigns can be thought of as the funding bucket that a donor can designate their gift toward. Campaigns allow you to create a more targeted "call to action" and/or to track donations towards a specific initiative more clearly.
Creating & Customization Campaigns
You can create and customize your campaigns from your Harness Dashboard under Campaigns.
To create a new campaign, select + Add New > + Add Campaign.
To duplicate an existing campaign to use as a template for a new campaign, select Options > Duplicate.
To edit an existing campaign, select Options > Edit.
What Can Be Customized in a Campaign?
When creating or editing a campaign, you will find a variety of customization options available to build your campaign pages. The only required fields that you must fill in before saving your campaign are the campaign's name and description, but you will also have the options to upload a campaign-specific image, set a donation goal, control some aspects of what information appears on your campaign pages, set an end date & time, and specific which giving form the campaign should utilize.
Campaign Name/Title (Required)
Every campaign requires a name. This name will appear to donors on your campaign pages and giving forms, so best practice is to name the campaign how you would like your donors to see it. Each campaign's name must be unique. If you are attempting to create a campaign using a name that you have already used, you will not be able to save the campaign. If you will run the same fundraiser each year, then we recommend adding the year to the end of the campaign's name (ex: Food Drive 2025).
Campaign Description (Required)
The campaign's description is where you will provide you donors with all of the information they need to know about this particular fundraiser. Campaign descriptions should be details and clearly communicate the campaign's purpose. Feel free to use the built in text editing tools to enhance the look and readability of your campaign's description.
Campaign Image
When creating a new campaign, you can optionally upload an image for the campaign to use. This image will appear on the campaign page as well as your giving forms when a donor selects this campaign. If no image is uploaded, your organization's cover image will be used by default. Check out these guidelines for selecting the best images to upload for your campaign.
Donation Goal
You may also want to set a donation goal so that donors can see how much you're hoping to raise and your progress in raising those funds so far. However, this is option and not required to be set. If a donation goal is added, the campaign does not automatically end once the goal is met. If you would like to stop the campaign once you've met your donation goal, you will need to archive the campaign.
Campaign Page Display Options
There are also a variety of displayable fields that can be included or excluded from the campaign's page. These include:
Donated & Goal: Displays your donation goal (if set) and the total donations raised so far.
Donor Count: Shows how many donors have given to the campaign.
Recent Donations: Highlights a number of recent donors who have given to the campaign. The donor's first name and last initial will display, along with their donation amount.
Donation Notes: Adds donors' notes/comments to the event page, with the exception of donors who set their donation note as private.
Updates & Posts: Deprecated (no longer in use)
If Donated & Goal is disabled, Donor Count will also be disabled. However, if Donated & Goal is enabled, Donor Count can be disabled without also disabling Donated & Goal.
Advanced Options
There are also a few "advanced options" that are available to you when setting up or editing a campaign. To access these options, select + Advanced Options. All of the additional options are truly optional and are not required to be used.
Once + Advanced Options has been selected, an expanded settings menu will open appear giving you the ability to assign the campaign a(n):
End Date & Time: Displays when the campaign will end on the campaign page and how many days are remaining for the campaign on a giving form when the campaign is selected. Once the end date & time pass, the campaign will move to the Ended tab.
Giving Form: Specifies which giving form the campaign page should open to. This setting is not used when a donor accesses your Harness donate button on your website (which only uses your default giving form), uses a direct link to a giving form, or accesses any other Harness page that leads to a giving form that is not this campaign's specific campaign page.
Category: Assign a category to campaigns and group them together (ex: food drives, storm relief, etc.). Campaign categories appear on your Organization Page (found in your Harness Dashboard under Fundraising > Organization) and can also be found from any of your Harness fundraising pages (giving forms, campaigns, or events) through the menu button found in the upper-righthand corner.
How to Create a Private Campaign
There may be a time where you want to create a private (not for the general public) campaign:
corporate partner campaign
individual/peer-to-peer style
other
To create a private campaign:
Create a campaign
This is the "funding bucket" that allows you to easily track/distinguish donations to this initiative from others.Hide this campaign
From Fundraising > Giving Forms, identify your default giving form, then select the 3 dots (actions) > Edit. From there, select the Donation tab, scroll down to the Campaigns section, toggle OFF "All Campaigns," and toggle ON only the other campaigns you want to appear. If you have other giving forms, you will need to do this for those giving forms as well.Create a giving form
From Fundraising > Giving Forms, create a new giving form. We recommend you title it the same name as your campaign for easy internal reference. In the giving form builder, go to the Donation tab, scroll down to the Campaigns section > toggle OFF "All Campaigns," and toggle ON only the campaign you want to appear/be the private campaign.Connect campaign + giving form
From Campaigns, locate the campaign and select Options > Edit. From there, select + Advanced Options, select the giving form you would like the campaign to use, and save your changes.
Active vs Ended vs Archived
Active Campaigns
These are you campaigns that are currently live and appear under the "Active" tab of your Campaigns.
Donors can give to these campaigns because they appear automatically in the drop-down menu of campaign choices for your donors to choose from (unless you have intentionally deselected that campaign from your giving forms here).
Ended Campaigns
These are campaigns where you gave the campaign an option end date & time. They're technically still active unless/until you archive them, but do not appear on the Active tab. Instead, they under the "Ended" tab of your Campaigns.
If you add an "End Date & Time" when creating your campaign (Advanced Options), the campaign will automatically be moved to the "Ended" tab in your Harness Dashboard but will still remain active & available to receive donations from donors. Ended campaigns do not automatically archive or hide from public view. The End Date & Time is used as a donor engagement strategy to proactively give by a certain date (ex: GivingTuesday is a time-sensitive campaign/appeal).
If you would like to ensure no new donors give to an ended campaign, you will need to archive the campaign once it has ended. To archive an ended campaign, go to the Ended tab in the Campaigns section, then select Options > Archive.
Archived Campaigns
Campaigns are not automatically archived, so you must manually archive a campaign when you no longer wish for the campaign to be available to new donors. To archive a campaign, locate the campaign on either the Active or Ended tabs, then select Options > Archive.
These campaigns appear under the "Archived" tab of your Campaigns. Archived campaigns are hidden from public view so no NEW donors/donations can be given to that campaign. Any donors who visit a link of an archived campaign will receive a message that the page is not found.
If you archive a campaign and had monthly gifts established to that campaign, that campaign will continue to receive that donor's monthly gift until you or the donor proactively change that recurring gift to a different campaign.
How Do Donors Interact With Campaigns?
Sharing Campaign Pages With Donors
You can also share your campaign pages directly with your donors. The campaign page is found under Campaigns by selecting Options > Campaign Page. Copy the page's URL from your browser's address bar, and share that link with your donors through your normal communications channels.
Your Campaign Pages
When a donor opens your campaign page's link, they will see the campaign's name/title, the description of the campaign, any applicable results from optional setting you've applied (if any), and a "Donate" button. Clicking the donate button will take the donor to the Giving Form that you've assigned for the campaign to use, or if none was assigned, which Giving Form you have set as your default.
Selecting Campaigns from Giving Forms
A Choose a Campaign drop-down menu appear on your Harness fundraising pages (also known as Giving Forms). Here, a donor can select from your available campaigns which one they would like to designate their gift to.
The Menu Button on Your Fundraising Pages
All of your Harness fundraising pages (giving forms, campaigns, events, etc.) have a menu button in the upper-righthand corner. Using that menu button, donors can access any/all of your campaigns. This option cannot be disabled.
Campaign Troubleshooting
I'm Unable to Save a Campaign
Let's check a few potential issues:
Do you have another campaign with the same title? Campaigns must have a unique name.
If the campaign name is already in use (even for an ended or archived campaign), then you will need to use a different name. The easiest solution would be to add the year to the end of the campaign's name.
Is your campaign photo/GIF larger than the recommended size?
Try resizing the image or use an alternative smaller image.
Have you copied & pasted your campaign description with text formatting from the source?
Use the Remove Format tool in the campaign description's text editor (the Tx icon).
Page Not Found When Trying to Create a Campaign
This usually happens when you attempt to create a campaign immediately after having created a campaign. The solution is to wait a minute or two, refresh the page, then try again to create a new campaign.
My Campaigns Don't Appear on My Fundraising Pages
This can happen for a few reasons:
Are you requiring donors select a campaign, but you have no active campaigns?
You may have the "Require Campaign" option toggled ON the Giving Form's settings, but have no active Campaigns in Harness. This setting removes your default Area of Greatest Need campaign and forces donors to select one of your active campaigns. The solution is to either turn OFF the Require Campaign setting or create Campaigns.
Do you have active campaigns, but they're not appearing on your fundraising page?
In the Giving Form's settings, you may have the "All Campaigns" option toggle OFF but have not toggled on the specific campaigns that you would like to feature on the giving form. The solution is to either toggle ON the All Campaigns setting or toggle ON the campaigns you want to feature.
Have you confirmed that the campaign is active and enabled in the connected Giving Form pages but still not seeing it on the fundraising page?
Your browser may be caching the page. While viewing your fundraising page, try doing a hard refresh of your browser: Ctrl + Shift + R on PC and Cmd + Shift + R on Mac. If that doesn't resolve the issue, try clearing your browser's cache.
Still need help? Chat with us via the bubble in the bottom left corner of your screen or email us at help@goharness.com.
FAQs
Q: How do I share my campaign with donors?
A: From your Campaigns tab in your Harness Dashboard, choose "Options" under your campaign & "Campaign Page" which will open a browser tab featuring your main campaign page. Simply copy & paste this URL into the location where you're promoting this giving opportunity (ex: Facebook, email, etc.).
Q: How can I add offline gifts (ex: cash & checks) to the campaign thermometer total?
A: With our Add a Donation tool, you can now enter donations received outside of Harness (cash, checks, etc.) and apply them toward a campaign you’ve created within Harness allowing you to more accurately show campaign goal progress.
Q: Can I hide campaigns from public view? What does that mean?
A: You can hide campaigns from donors completely by choosing to "archive" those campaigns - this prevents NEW donations from being given. If you'd like the campaigns to be "live"/able to receive donations but "hidden" from your main website's floating donate button/other fundraising pages, simply toggle OFF that campaign from your default giving form here and create a new custom giving form for your campaign that connects to only that campaign.
Q: What happens to monthly donations given to a campaign after its archived
A: Donor's monthly donations given to an archived campaign will continue to contribute to that campaign until the donor proactively designates their gift to an alternate campaign through their personal Donor Dashboard.
Q: Can I set up campaign-specific automatic text messages?
A: Not at this time. In the meantime, here are two easy alternatives:
Edit Auto-Messages
Add temporary specific campaign text underneath "general" donation language in your auto-texts with something like "A special thank you to everyone for supporting our [campaign name]!"Campaign Manual Message
Quickly & easily create your campaign thank you message as a template and manually send this message to campaign supporters at your preferred time (ex: best practice is usually mid-way through a campaign as a "progress to goal" update & "keep giving" prompt or after a campaign has ended as a "thank you for helping us reach our goal").
Q: Can I schedule campaign text messages to be sent at specific times?
A: Not at this time. We recommend you create a template of the message you'd like to send and set a calendar reminder for yourself to manually send this message at the time you prefer.
Q: How do I edit my campaign page (ex: donation amounts, options, etc)?
A: Click here to learn more about customizations options and here to learn more about creating private campaigns.
Q: How do I change which campaigns appear in the drop-down menu?
A: By default, all active campaigns appear in the drop-down menu on your fundraising pages. You can change this by going to Fundraising > Giving Forms > Actions > Edit > Campaigns - turn OFF "all campaigns" & turn ON each campaign you want to appear > Save.
Q: How do I remove Harness' default "Area of Greatest Need" campaign?
A: Harness' "Area of Greatest Need" automatically appears as a donation option for your donors to give unrestricted gifts instead of just campaign-specific gifts. To turn this "off"/remove this from your fundraising pages, you'll need to edit the Giving Form that you're looking to remove it from. In the giving form editor under the Donation tab, scroll down to the Campaigns section, toggle ON "Require Campaign", then Save your changes. If you do this, you must have other campaigns for a donor to select, otherwise they will be unable to make donations.
Q: Can I archive/unarchive my campaigns?
A: Yep! From the blue "Options" button under your campaign found here, choose "Archive." To "unarchive" a campaign, choose the "Archived" button in the upper right/middle here, choose "Unarchive".
Q: What is a category & where does it appear?
A: A category is an internal (within Harness Harness Dashboard only) tool to help you organize your campaigns (most often into designations vs time-sensitive/specific fundraising events like GivingTuesday). Categories appear on your Organization page (Fundraising > Organization).
Q: A donor accidentally gave to no campaign and/or the wrong campaign? How do I transfer them to the correct campaign designation?
A: From your Reports > Donation, search for the donor's name, select the 3 stacked dots to the right of the donation amount & choose "Edit Donation". Under "Campaign" select the correct campaign & "Save Changes".
Q: I'm trying to create a campaign but it won't save. Help?
A: Let's first check these things:
- Do you have another campaign with the same title (ex: archived)?
- Is your campaign photo/GIF larger than the recommended size (here)?
- Have you copied & pasted your campaign description with text formatting from the source? (if so, choose the text unformat tool)
Still need help? Chat with us via the bubble in the bottom left corner of your screen or email us at help@goharness.com.