GivingTools

Some GivingTools customers were reporting an odd column display when exporting giving histories from the Export section of the dashboard. This issue has been fixed via the addition of an “Exclude Received Events” check box. If you are seeing any grabled information in your particular reader, click that box and be amazed!

We are hard at work on the 3.0 build of the GivingTools platform. This new version updates the engine under the hood to enable us to roll out refinements and feature expansions far more rapidly. It will also include a number of enhancements to improve basic operation (speeding the viewing of Reports for customers with many donors, for example).

We’ll keep you posted as this enhancement comes together.

When you send a receipt or giving report, a pdf version will now accompany the email. This printable version of the email contents removes the gray background and zig-zag element and is easy to print.

In the same update, we modified how recurring gifts are treated in gift receipts. From here forward, only the latest charge is on the receipt, not the entire giving history. Showing every payment instance becomes a bit much for a weekly giver, for example. The receipt is to show recent activity; for fuller history, a report can be generated by the donor from their account login.

Donors can access a report of their giving for the year by logging in to their donor account at www.givingtools.com/login. Once logged in, they simply select the Gifts tab and then click the “Send me a giving report” button.

Managers can also send a giving report to everybody who has donated in the past year. To do that, click Accounts in your dashboard, then scroll down to the Giving Report section. You can customize the message that accompanies the report here, too.

If a donor has a recurring gift they would like to cancel, they can cancel it by logging in to their donor account at givingtools.com/login. Once in, they can click the Gifts tab, find the gift in question, and click the “Cancel Recurring” button beside the gift.

Managers are also able to cancel gifts on behalf of donors. Simply find an instance of the gift in Reports, click the more button (…) and click Cancel Recurring beside the gift.

If you have any questions or need help cancelling a gift, you can also reach out to GivingTools support (support@givingtools.com). We are happy to cancel a gift on your behalf and can deal with any other unique request you may receive.

The Help section of your dashboard includes a Guide for Users that also outlines the process.

We’ve been working to create more connectivity with popular platforms and to offer additional data export options.

Here’s the run-down:

Quickbooks
In Export, select the format called “Quickbooks” for a Quickbook-friendly database export.

MailChimp
In Export, select the format called “MailChimp”. You can select the appeal, dates, and amount ranges to export contact infor for donors that fit your criteria.

Attendee List
If you would like to snag a list of attendees for an event appeal, select the “Attendee List” format in Export.

Deposit Information
Would you like to know when your donations were deposited in your bank account? Simply view all your history, then click Export. Select the “Include Deposit Information” option. Your export will now include the date each gift was deposited and the total amount of the batch it was included in.

Coming Soon: Salesforce
We are deep into a direct integration with Salesforce. Once completed, you will be able to automatically sync your GivingTools activity to Salesforce.

Zapier
Zapier is a popular connectivity platform that enables you to connect GivingTools to a host of other platforms that are Zapier-compatible. This is a do-it-yourself option, if you want to make a connection that we do not overtly offer. To access this option, visit Help in your dashboard, click Zapier in the navigation, and click to gain access.

We’re pleased to announce that text to give is now offered on the GivingTools platform.

This new feature is easy to use…and we are providing it at no additional cost to our customers.

To activate text to give, simply scroll down to the Short Code section of your giving page (or edit any giving form and scroll to the Short Code section). There, you can enter a short code for your giving page or giving form. You can also customize the text message that donors receive.

To use text to give, your donors simply text the short code to the toll-free number. They then receive a texted reply that shows your text message, along with a link that takes them directly to your giving page or form. It’s that easy!

Many of you have been asking for it, and now we have it. Last month, we added support for using Google Analytics on your giving pages and forms!

All you have to do is get your Google Analytics tracking ID (which will look similar to this: UA-XXXXXXXX-X), and put it in the new section of the settings page.

That’s it! Once you’ve added the tracking ID, you should start seeing visitors in your Google Analytics account.

Today we released a slight improvement to the reports interface: payment failure notices!

Before, you would see displayed on all gifts that haven’t been canceled or completed. However, this was a problem when gifts would fail to recur for some reason. While managers and donors would receive an email informing them of the situation, the interface would continue to say “Active”.

So today we introduced payment failure statuses:

While past payment failures will read “Fail: Unknown”, all new payment failures will have the reason listed in the reports page. Donors will also see this status in their accounts.

As always, donors can update their payment method and the gift will attempt a new installment.

We are planning a large revamp of the reports interface in the near future. Stuff like searching for gifts, filtering by status, managing them from the donor view in Accounts, and more stuff like that. Soon™.

If you didn’t notice, we update the receipt styling a few months ago:

Receipts now also support a contact email. If a donor replies to your email or clicks the contact link at the bottom of the email, their response will be sent to this address. You can configure this address in your receipt settings.