Allow Admins to include or exclude fees covered by donor in thermometer total
Kate Hibbert
We do not include fees covered by donors in our total fundraising revenue for a campaign. Give Lively automatically includes these amounts, and so our thermometer ends up looking like we have raised more (sometimes thousands more) than we really have. Please provide an option for admins to exclude all fee amounts covered by donors from the campaign page total and from the thermometer.
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Olivia Gulin
Merged in a post:
Skewed Giving Bar Totals
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Jeff Bennett
Some donors cover the cost of the credit card processing fees, which are also displayed in the total shown on the giving bar. This skews the fundraising amount on the giving bar. For example, a donor contributes $1,000 and covers the $22 processing fees. The "total fundraising amount" shown on the giving bar is $1,022 when in reality, it should only be $1,000. Please configure a "switch" that can make this adjustment in the campaign.
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Elaine Griswold
We always set our goal higher to cover some overhead. There are always costs associated with processing donations, even those that come by check. When donors give the extra to cover the fees, they are giving that whole amount, and I think they should see it reflected on the campaign page. So, I would not use the option if it were available. Generally, I have found that the more options available on a website the more chances there are for glitches.
Matt Connelly
Hi Jeff,
Hope you’re well—thanks for this feedback! Our design premise behind the progress meter, as well as any public list that displays a donor’s gift, is to have it reflect the total amount of money that the donor gives to a nonprofit, regardless of payment processing fees.
If a donor contributes $25, we feel that it is a confusing and slightly upsetting experience if they were to only see $24.15 on either a list of recent donations or as their contribution towards a progress meter. Even if $24.15 is what a nonprofit ultimately nets in the end, we aim to have the number to reflect what came out of the donor’s funds, as well as the amount that is ultimately tax deductible for them.
Happy to explore this conversation more, but I hope our rationale for the current product resonates. I could also recommend slightly increasing your fundraising goal if you’re trying to hit a certain milestone and want to compensate for fees.
-Matt
Marina Cull
Matt Connelly: Hey Matt, I get the rationale, but having the ability to select whether or not you want the credit card fees subtracted from the campaign total (especially for donations where the donor opts to cover those fees) would be really valuable.
We have campaigns centered around fundraising events where our goal is just to get people donating as often and as much as possible, so it makes sense to say "We've raised XX amount!" and have that amount include credit card fees because it adds to the sense of momentum and excitement for the evening. But in other cases-- like a recent campaign where we're trying to match a $30K leading gift-- it's detrimental to our fundraising efforts to not have the ability to subtract credit card fees from the progress bar. If we bumped up the campaign goal to accommodate for credit card fees like you suggested, it would confuse our messaging because we'd say "We have a $30K leading gift that we want to see matched!" and then have donors go to the campaign page and see a goal that's higher than $30K. If we keep $30K as the campaign goal, though, and credit card fees aren't subtracted from the progress bar total, we run the risk of raising less because people would think we've reached our goal before we have.
I also don't think it would confuse donors who opt to cover credit card fees to not see their full payment amount reflected in the progress bar total because they're actively choosing to cover those fees, which means they understand we don't receive them.
So my recommendation would be to enable administrators to select whether a campaign subtracts credit card fees or not!
Sheryl Johnson
Marina Cull: For what it's worth, I think even if you are doing a matching campaign, a donor who gives $25 and has credit card fees taken out of that amount has still given you $25 to be matched. Those fees are just a cost of doing business, and there are lots of other costs in running a campaign that we don't ask donors to specifically cover.