Donation products can be sold anywhere in Rhythm, including event registrations, memberships, and other checkouts. When you turn on conversion, each fulfilled purchase automatically becomes a gift in Fundraising.
Prerequisites
You need access to Fundraising's setup Settings page to change these settings.
What This Controls
This article covers two automatic behaviors on your Fundraising Settings page: creating gifts from donation product purchases made anywhere in Rhythm, and soft-crediting a donor's related people when a gift is made. You’ll find both at Fundraising & Gifts › Setup › Settings.
Warning
If you sell donation products through registrations, memberships, or another checkout, those purchases will not create gift records or appear in a donor's Fundraising 360 Gifts area unless you turn on Create Gifts from Donation Product Purchases below. A donation collected during another process becomes a gift only when this setting is on.
Warning
Adding a fundraising or donation product directly as a line item on an invoice you create in the Console records the revenue and payment correctly in Finance, but it does not create a Fundraising gift. Gift creation depends on an order-driven or gift-driven workflow, such as a checkout purchase or Fundraising's own gift processing, not on an invoice line item alone.
Rhythm does not let you make a donation a required line item during membership join or renewal checkout. You can offer a donation product during that checkout, but a donor is never forced to include one.
This feature converts only donations collected through Rhythm's own checkouts and gift processing. If you are bringing in historical or external donation records from another platform, see Record a Gift by Hand for bulk import through Security & Settings, since that history was not created by one of Rhythm's own donation processes.
Turn On Gift Creation from Donations
- Go to Fundraising & Gifts › Setup › Settings.
- Turn on
Create Gifts from Donation Product Purchases. - For each donation product listed, choose a
Fund, and optionally choose aCampaignandAppeal:. - Optionally choose a value for
What giving process should we use for donations?:. If you leave it blank, Rhythm uses yourDefault Giving Process:instead. - Select
Save Changes.
Result
From now on, when a donation product is purchased and fulfilled anywhere in Rhythm, Fundraising creates a matching gift automatically. The gift is recorded against the fund you mapped, and against the campaign and appeal if you chose them.
Warning
This card appears only after your account has at least one donation product. While the switch is on, every mapped row needs a fund before you can save; any product without a mapped fund prevents the save from completing.
Tip
Turning this setting on affects only purchases fulfilled from that point forward. Past donation orders are not converted automatically; a separate maintenance step reprocesses old orders into gifts once you're ready.
If you need reliable gift tracking for donations on orders paid later, use a Donation Product mapped here rather than a Fundraising Product, since Fundraising Product gift tracking on pay-later orders is not yet dependable.
Which Giving Process a Converted Gift Uses
A gift created this way uses the giving process you chose in What giving process should we use for donations?:. If you leave that choice blank, it uses your account's Default Giving Process: instead. That choice determines which receipt template is used for the resulting gift.
The default giving process also serves as a broader fallback. Whenever an order does not name a giving process for the gift it fulfills, Fundraising uses your default. For any order type other than a gift order specifically, Fundraising ignores the giving process named on the order and uses the default instead.
The confirmation email for a donation product is expected to go out once the purchase is fulfilled and paid, not simply once the invoice or order is created.
Automatic Soft Credits from Relationships
Turn on Apply Soft Credits to Relationships when you want a gift to automatically soft-credit people related to the donor, based on rules you define. For example, you can credit a percentage of a gift to a donor's spouse or business partner. Each rule uses one of your account's relationship types, the same relationship types CRM uses elsewhere to connect contacts and organizations.
- Go to Fundraising & Gifts › Setup › Settings.
- Turn on
Apply Soft Credits to Relationships. - Add one or more rules, and choose a
Relationship Type:, aDirection:, and aPercentage to Creditfor each one. - Select
Save Changes.
Result
From now on, when a gift or pledge is made, Fundraising automatically records soft credits for the donor's related people according to the rules you set up.
Tip
Changing or adding a rule affects only gifts made after the change. Gifts already recorded keep the soft credits they received at the time.
Once the switch is on, you need at least one complete rule with a relationship type, a direction, and a percentage. For the detailed rules around duplicate relationship types, percentage limits, and what a refused save looks like, see the settings validation reference in this same configuration area.
Related
See "Related" in the sidebar for donor club, soft credit, and donation gift rule validation details, for reprocessing past donation orders, and for the rest of your Fundraising settings.