The giving tab shows all related data from donations made by the current contact. Individual payments can be marked as donations and can be either a one-off, or recurring payments. They can also be optionally assigned to a specific appeal and have specific restrictions regarding how the money can be used/spent.
What are donations?
All payments marked as donations will appear in this panel (as well as the general payments tab). These payments are grouped by the appeal they have been for, but can be managed in the same way as regular payments.
When a payment is marked as a donation, you can select an appeal to link the donation to, which is useful for managing restrictions and reporting on appeals - however this is entirely optional.
A donation also allows a donor to set up recurring (or regular) payments for an appeal, automatically charging and collecting the payments every month. Donors can also choose to increment their recurring payments, increasing their donated amount every year by a set amount. These settings can be managed by the donor themselves in their sheepApp dashboard.
Once a donation is recorded against a contact, they will be assigned a "donor" tag.
How do I record a new donation?
Donations can be created by donors through sheepApp, but your staff can also create a donation record in sheepCRM. To add a new donation, click on the record a donation button in the donations panel.
This will bring up a window with the same fields as the payment window, with the additional option to select an appeal and/or restrictions for the donated amount.
How can I view or edit an existing donation?
Click on the donation to expand it, showing more information. If the donation is for a specific appeal, this will be grouped with other payments for the appeal and the expanded card will show information about the appeal and the related payments.
Please Note: The primary image for the appeal will be used by the name and total donation amount, as well as the icon in the unexpanded card. If no primary image is used in the appeal, the image will be missing and there will be a letter instead of an icon - so we recommend adding images to help identify appeals quickly and easily.
If the donation is not related to a specific appeal, the donation will appear on its own as a general donation. In order to manage or edit a payment inside this donation, click on the edit (or unlock, if locked) option next to the payment record.
How can I pause / Resume recurring donations?
If a donor has any issues and is unable to make the next donation payment, recurring donations can be temporarily or indefinitely paused. Once paused, these donations can then be resumed when available.
To pause a recurring donation, click on the actions button by the donation and select the pause donations option. This will bring up a window allowing you to set a duration before the donation automatically resumes (although this is optional and defaults to an indefinite pause that will need to be manually resumed.
If no automatic resume duration has been set, or if you wish to resume the donations early, click on the actions button by the paused donation and select the resume donations option.
Please Note: If a donation is made via GoCardless, the action of pausing/resuming recurring donations will be reflected with them.
How do I change the amount or appeal of a recurring donation?
If a donor wishes to change the amount they are donating monthly, or wish to select a different appeal, they can do so inside their sheepApp donation dashboard. If they are unable to make the changes themselves, you can change these settings in sheepCRM. Scroll down to the donation in question and click on the actions button, selecting the relevant option. Make the changes in the window as needed and click on the save button to save your changes.
Please Note: If a donation is made via GoCardless, the action of changing the amount or appeal donation will be reflected with them.
Please Note: These changes will not apply to previous donations and will take effect when the next donation is due.
*Changing an existing donation amount will NOT generate an automated notification to the donor from sheepCRM However it may be possible to receive these direct from GoCardless.
How do I stop a recurring donation?
If the donor wants to permanently stop their recurring donation, click on the actions button by the donation and select the stop donations option.
Please Note: If a donation is made via GoCardless, the action of cancelling a donation will be reflected with them.
Please Note: This will immediately stop the recurring donation and can not be restarted without the donor making a new pledge. If this is a temporary pause, we recommend pausing the recurring donations instead.
Offline/non-sheepApp recurring donations
If you are managing standing orders or other recurring donations that have not been made through sheepApp, each payment will need to be added manually or will need importing on a regular basis.
Gift Aid declaration
Whether the contact has declared gift aid can be viewed in the giving summary panel in the left-hand column next to the chart. To record a new gift aid declaration, click on the actions button in the giving summary panel and select the record gift aid declaration option from the list.
This will bring up a window to create a new evidence record with some of the fields pre-filled with Gift Aid information. Fill in the fields as needed and click on the save button to create the declaration record.
Please Note: With a valid Gift Aid declaration, any future donations made by the member in sheepApp or added manually by staff in sheepCRM will have the gift aid field automatically set to enabled.
How does a customer view their Gift Aid Declaration?
Go to the dashboard of your member area, then head to Donations and then GiftAid https://app.sheepcrm.com/sheepy-owners-club/giving/
If you do not have Giving Pack / Donations turned on please contact sheepCRM support.
How can I find donors for a specific appeal?
Once a payment is recorded against an appeal, the donor will be automatically assigned a tag with the name of the appeal. This can be used to create segments of donors for specific appeals.
Please Note: if a donor has signed up to an appeal via GoCardless the appeal tag will not appear until the first payment has been collected, usually 7-10 days later.
I want to set up regular giving payment on behalf of another sheepCRM User how do I do this?
We do not currently have the ability to set up a regular giving payment on behalf of another contact within sheepCRM as it is a fully self-service feature, however, it is possible that a mandate for another bank account can be used.
This can be done by logging into the self-service account and going through the appeal to set up a regular giving instruction and using the current mandate as opposed to starting a new one. If they have no active mandate, creating a brand new one is required.