Fund categories are the headings that group your funds wherever a fund picker appears, including Setup, Console gift and pledge screens, and giving processes that let donors choose a fund by category. Each category has a name, a permanent identifier, and an active status. When your categories are clear, every fund list in Fundraising is easier to scan and use.
Every Rhythm account starts with one fund category, which funds use as their default home until you add more.
Where to Find It
Go to Fundraising & Gifts › Setup › Fund Categories. The page lists every category in your account, including active and inactive categories, with its status and last changed date.
Prerequisites
- You need Fundraising administrator access to open Setup pages. Without it, you’ll see an Access Denied message and the page won’t open.
- Choose your category names before you create funds, because a fund can only be filed under a category that already exists.
Create or Edit a Fund Category
- Go to Fundraising & Gifts › Setup › Fund Categories.
- Select Create Fund Category, or open an existing category to update it.
- Enter a Name:. As you type, Rhythm suggests an ID: from the name; after you create the category, you can’t change the identifier.
- Leave Status: on to make the category available for new funds, or switch it off to retire it.
- Select Save Changes, or select Save & Add Another to save this category and start another one.
Result
The category appears in the Fund Categories list and in every fund picker that groups funds by category, using the order you arranged.
You can also select Clone from a category’s row menu. Cloning starts a new category with a copy of the existing category’s name and status, and leaves the identifier blank so you can give the copy its own.
Reorder Categories
Drag a category by its handle to move it up or down in the list. Fundraising saves the new position for every category as soon as you drop it, so there’s nothing else to save.
Switch a Category Off
When you turn a category’s Status: off, staff can no longer file new funds under it. Funds already assigned to that category are not changed. They keep their category, continue to appear in reports and pickers under it, and continue to accept gifts exactly as before.
Delete a Fund Category
Fundraising won’t delete a category while any fund still uses it. To make the category available for deletion, change each of its funds to a different category, or delete those funds, using Funds. You can’t undo a category deletion from the Console, so double-check before you confirm.
Giving processes can also limit donors to specific fund categories when they choose where to give. Before you retire a category, check whether a giving process depends on that category being available to donors. See Giving Form Options.
Permissions
You need Fundraising administrator access to Setup to view, create, edit, reorder, and delete fund categories.
Validation and Errors
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Access Denied dialog | Your role doesn’t have Fundraising administrator access to Setup | Ask an administrator for access |
| The save is refused with a message about the name | The category has no name | Enter a name before saving |
| The save is refused with a message about the ID | The identifier includes a character other than letters, digits, and _ : | - | Let Rhythm suggest the ID from the name instead of typing your own |
| "Unable to delete Fund Category" | A fund still uses this category | Reassign or delete that fund first, then delete the category |