Take gifts by card on your Donate page

With card giving switched on, your Donate page gets a Give online form. A visitor chooses an amount, enters their details and pays on a secure page run by Stripe. The money goes straight to your choir's own Stripe account, and the gift appears in your donor records by itself.

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Card giving is available only on a site we host, on the Premium plan, with a Stripe account connected. A self-hosted site (version 1.6.12) cannot take gifts by card. Your Donate page and its Donate button still work on every site: point the button at a donation service you already use. See Your Donate page.

What has to be true

The form appears only when all of these are so. If one is not, the form is simply not shown and visitors see the rest of the page as usual.

1. Your site is on the Premium plan. See What each plan includes.
2. Donate page is on in Site Settings → Features.
3. Keep donor records on this site is on in Site Settings → Features, because every gift is recorded as a donor and a gift.
4. Take gifts by card on this page is ticked in Site Settings → Donate page. It is off to begin with.
5. A Stripe account is connected to your site. See Take card payments: connect Stripe.

Switch it on

1. In the admin panel, open Site Settings and choose Donate page.
2. Read the notice at the top of the section (the table below).
3. Tick Take gifts by card on this page.
4. Adjust Suggested amounts and Smallest gift accepted if you like.
5. Press Save.
6. Open your Donate page in a private window to check the Give online form is there.

Suggested amounts

Suggested amounts are the buttons the giver can press. Write up to six amounts in your site's currency, with commas between them: 25, 50, 100, 250. Write a thousand as 1000, with no comma inside it. Givers can always choose Another amount and type their own.

• It begins as 25, 50, 100, 250.
• An amount below your smallest gift or above 25,000.00 is left out.
• A repeated amount is shown once.
• If none of what you write can be used, or the box is empty, the form offers 25, 50, 100 and 250.
• The second button is the one chosen to begin with.

Smallest gift accepted

The smallest gift the form will take. Leave it empty for 1.00. It cannot be set below 1.00, and anything you write that is not an amount or is out of range is ignored and 1.00 is used. The most that can be given online at once is 25,000.00; this cannot be changed.

The notice at the top of the section

The top of Donate page settings tells you where you stand.

What you see	What it means
A label, "People can give by card on your Donate page", with "Payments, payouts and disputes are in your Stripe dashboard."	Everything is in place and the box is ticked.
"Taking gifts by card on this page is not part of this site's plan, so "Take gifts by card on this page" has no effect for now. ..." with a link, See plans	Your plan does not include donor records. Move to the Premium plan.
"Take gifts by card. Connect a Stripe account for your choir and people can give by card on your Donate page; the money goes straight to you." with Set it up in your account	Your site could take cards but no Stripe account is connected yet. See Take card payments: connect Stripe.
"Donor records are switched off in Features, so the giving form is not shown: a gift given online has to be added to a donor's record."	Switch Keep donor records on this site back on.
"Card payments are not available on this site, so the giving form is not shown ..."	This site cannot take cards at all, which is the case for every self-hosted site.

No label and no notice appears when everything is in place but Take gifts by card on this page is not ticked.

What the giver sees

The Give online form sits below the donation box.

1. Amount: buttons for each suggested amount and Another amount. Choosing the latter shows a box, "Your amount (CAD)", with the allowed range under it, for example "From $1 to $25,000". Whole amounts are written without cents on the public page; amounts with cents show two decimal places.
2. Your name and Email, to confirm your gift. Both are needed.
3. Postal address (optional): address, second line, city or town, province, state or county, postal code and country. It is noted as needed if the giver would like an official receipt. The address is saved on the donor's record if they do not have one yet.
4. Give to (optional): a list of your current campaigns, starting with "Where it is needed most". It is shown only when you have an open campaign. See Run a campaign.
5. A message for us (optional), up to 500 characters.
6. A tick box, I would like my gift to be anonymous.
7. The security check, if your site uses one, which has to be completed.
8. The button, which reads Give $50 by card once an amount is chosen. It takes the giver to Stripe's page to enter their card. "We never see your card number."

Under the button the giver is told "We will email you to confirm your gift. That email is not an official receipt."

Limits

• The amount must be between your smallest gift (1.00 or what you set) and 25,000.00. Otherwise the giver is told "Please enter an amount between $1.00 and $25,000.00" (or, if the form catches it first, "Please enter an amount between $1 and $25,000.").
• The Stripe payment page lasts 60 minutes. A gift not paid by then is marked "Not completed" and nothing is charged.
• Only three unpaid gifts at a time are allowed for one email address. A fourth is refused with "There are already gifts waiting to be paid for under that email address. Please finish one of them, or try again in an hour."
• A campaign that closed while the giver was choosing is refused: "That campaign is not open for gifts any more. Please choose again."

The thank-you page

After paying, the giver returns to a page of yours. It reads what has happened and never changes anything itself.

State	What the giver sees
Paid	"Thank you for your gift of $50." and "It has been received by Harmony Community Choir." They are told an email is on its way and that it is not an official receipt, and that a tax receipt, if you issue them, will follow from the choir.
Being confirmed	"We are confirming your gift of $50." Stripe sometimes takes a few seconds longer than the giver's browser. The page looks again every three seconds for about a minute. The giver can close it, and will be emailed once the gift is received.
Not completed	"This gift was not completed." "Nothing was charged." with a link to try again.
Refunded	"This gift of $50 was refunded." "The money has gone back to the card it was paid with."

The emails

When a gift is confirmed as paid, two emails are sent:

• To the giver, "Thank you for your gift to Harmony Community Choir", with the amount, date, who it was given to if a campaign was chosen, and a reference. It says it is not an official receipt for income tax purposes.
• To the choir, "Harmony Community Choir: a gift of $50.00 was given online", saying who gave how much, to which campaign, whether they asked to be anonymous, any message, and where the gift is on record. It says that no receipt has been sent. It goes to your contact email address (Site Settings → Contact). If you have no contact email, or your site cannot send email, it is not sent.

See Every email your site sends.

Why is the giving form not showing?

Work down the list.

1. Is your site on the Premium plan? The notice at the top of Donate page settings says if not.
2. Are Donate page and Keep donor records on this site both on in Features?
3. Is Take gifts by card on this page ticked, and saved?
4. Is a Stripe account connected? See Take card payments: connect Stripe.
5. Reload the page. Visitors may have an old copy open.

If the form is hidden for any reason, a visitor who tries to use it by other means is told "Gifts cannot be given online on this site at the moment."

If something goes wrong

Message the giver sees	What it means
"Please enter your name" / "Please enter your email address, so we can confirm your gift"	A required box is empty.
"Security verification failed. Please try again."	The security check was not passed.
"Payment could not be started just now. Nothing was charged; please try again in a minute."	Stripe could not be reached. It is safe to try again.

What to do when a gift is paid but you want to give it back is in Online gifts and refunds.