Every gift needs a destination. In Rhythm, three records control where it goes: the fund category that groups related funds, the fund that receives the gift, and the fundraising product that represents the fund when the gift becomes an order. This article also explains when a fund becomes unavailable, what a restricted fund means, and how the annual contribution limit works.
Fund Categories Group Funds for Pickers
A fund category is a named group, such as "Scholarships," "Capital Projects," or "General Funds." You can set its display order and make it active or inactive, but it has no other settings. Unlike funds, campaigns, and appeals, fund categories cannot use your account's custom fields.
A fund category only groups funds under a heading in the fund pickers that staff and donors see. When you create or edit a fund, you can choose only active categories. Fund pickers group and show funds by category only when the category is active.
A Fund Is What Gifts Are Directed To
A fund is the destination for a gift, such as a scholarship, building project, or general operating fund. To create a fund, you need a name, a fund category, and a business unit, which is Rhythm's revenue-booking destination. You can also set a display order, mark the fund restricted, add an annual contribution limit, and choose whether to hide it from the Portal.
After you save a fund, you cannot change its business unit.
A Fundraising Product Stands in for the Fund on an Order
When a gift is paid, it becomes a line on a Commerce order. Since orders sell products rather than funds, each fund is backed by at least one fundraising product. That fundraising product represents the fund on the order and carries the fund's business unit so the money is booked correctly.
A fundraising product does not have its own price. The gift sets the amount, not the product.
Collecting donations through an order or purchase flow is separate from the dedicated Fundraising & Gifts module. Even without that module, an order can still include a donation and record it in Finance. You just would not have Fundraising's donor records, totals, and reporting for that donation.
What Makes a Fund Unavailable
A fund can become unavailable for giving in three ways, and each one behaves differently:
- Hiding it from the Portal. This keeps the fund off public giving forms, while staff can still choose it in the Console for gifts they enter by hand. Use this for a memorial fund or grant that should only come in through staff. A hidden fund is not hidden everywhere: a signed-in Portal member who reads or lists funds through the Portal's own fund data still sees it. A donor can also submit a giving form that was already open before you hid the fund, because Rhythm does not re-check the fund when it builds the order.
- Switching it off. Use this when you want to retire a fund but keep its history intact. An inactive fund disappears from staff pickers, product forms, campaign and appeal override tables, and public giving forms. Gifts, pledges, and recurring gifts that already name the fund are not affected. Rhythm does not stop a new gift from naming an inactive fund directly through the API; the protection is only in the pickers. If you switch the fund back on, it returns to the same places as before, depending on whether it is also hidden.
- Deleting it. Deleting a fund is permanent, and it deletes all fundraising products for that fund. You cannot delete a fund while anything else still names it, such as a gift, pledge, giving process, or campaign override. There is no undo from the Console, and the deletion is not guaranteed to be all-or-nothing. If Rhythm fails to remove one of the fund's products partway through, you may need to clean up the rest by hand. The identifier also cannot be reused for up to an hour afterward.
Tip
If you only want to stop new gifts to a fund and keep its past giving intact for reporting, switch it off instead of deleting it. Delete a fund only when it was created by mistake and was never actually used for giving.
What "Restricted" Means
Marking a fund restricted records that its money can be used only for a specific purpose. Fundraising does not use that flag for anything else here, beyond showing it on the fund list. To control which funds donors can choose, use the targeted-giving settings on the giving process, which can filter donors to restricted or unrestricted funds only.
If a restricted fund appears on a giving form that should offer only unrestricted funds, check the giving process settings instead of the fund itself.
What the Annual Contribution Limit Actually Checks
An annual contribution limit caps how much one donor can give to a fund. The limit looks back over the trailing twelve months from today, not a calendar year or fiscal year. Rhythm enforces the limit only when a donor's gift is turned into an order from a giving form.
A gift you record directly for a donor in the Console is not checked against the limit. If a donor is refused for exceeding the limit even though this calendar year's giving looks under it, the rolling twelve-month window is the reason. The limit is counting a gift from late last year that a calendar-year view would not include.
Related
See the related articles for how to set up funds, fund categories, and fundraising products directly, who can maintain and see them, and how campaigns and appeals can choose their own product for a fund.