Each giving process can send three receipt-related emails: one after a one-time gift, one after a pledge, and one to the person honored by a tribute gift. You write all three on the giving process setup form, and you can preview each one before donors see it. Each template editor also lets you set the sender name and email address.
Where to Find It
Go to Fundraising & Gifts › Setup › Giving Processes, then create or open the giving process whose receipts you want to configure.
Prerequisites
- You need Fundraising administrator access to open Setup pages.
- To preview a receipt, have the identifier for a real gift or pledge in your account ready. You can copy it from the record's options menu on its 360 screen.
Configure the Gift Receipt
- Open the giving process's Create or Edit form.
- Turn on Gift Receipts.
- Write the email in the template editor, using merge fields for Contact, Organization, Campaign, Appeal, Donor, and Gift to personalize it.
- Select Save Changes.
Result
Every standalone one-time gift made through this giving process uses this receipt template when the donor's contact record has an email address. If the contact record does not have an email address, the donor does not receive a receipt. When a donation is part of another product flow, such as a membership change, that product's confirmation email setting sends the acknowledgment instead of this template.
If you record a gift in the Gifts app with a pay-later option and process its payment later from the related order, Rhythm treats the unpaid gift as an open pledge rather than a gift. Because of that, this receipt does not apply; see Configure the Pledge Receipt below. A gift later recorded from a pledge payment also does not send its own automatic receipt.
When staff process a gift in the Console, checkout includes a confirmation-email option for the donor. If staff clear that option, Rhythm does not send this receipt for that gift.
The gift receipt, pledge receipt, and tribute notification templates can each include a Bcc address, so a copy of every email also goes to an address you choose.
Warning
The Bcc field expects a literal email address. If it contains a merge field instead, the email does not send successfully until you remove the merge field from that field.
You cannot use a merge field in the Bcc field to copy a secondary or joint donor's own email address. In some cases, removing the merge field and leaving the Bcc field with a fixed address, or blank, gets the primary receipt sending again.
Configure the Pledge Receipt
The Pledge Receipts card appears only when Pledges is turned on for the giving process. See Giving Form Options. When you turn on pledges, pledge receipts turn on automatically. Write the pledge receipt the same way you write the gift receipt, using merge fields for the pledge instead of the gift.
Turning Pledges off removes pledge choices from the donor-facing giving experience, but it does not stop every pledge from being created behind the scenes. A gift entered with a pay-later option, as described above, can still be recorded as an open pledge even when Pledges looks off to donors. When that happens, this template's pledge receipt can still be sent for it.
What the Receipt Merge Fields Can Show
The gift receipt's merge fields describe the gift as a whole, including its fund, campaign, appeal, donor, contact, and organization. The pledge receipt uses the same groups for the pledge instead of the gift.
For a gift allocated across more than one fund, these gift-level fields describe the gift's total, not each split. The available information does not confirm whether a receipt template can show each split's own fund and amount separately, so preview the receipt before relying on that level of detail.
The {{gift.amount}} merge field prints the number as stored, so a gift of exactly $1.00 or $1.10 can render as 1 or 1.1 instead of always showing two decimal places. Check a preview if the exact formatting matters. The transaction date is not an available merge field, so you cannot show it directly in a receipt this way.
Configure the Tribute Notification
When tributes are allowed and the honoree notification is set to Email Only or Email or Postal Mail, the Tribute Notification Email Template card appears. Write the email that goes to the person the donor is honoring or memorializing with their gift.
There is one configurable email for this notification, whether the donor gives in honor of someone or in memory of them. Rhythm sends the notification, and any Bcc address on it, only when honoree notification is set to Email Only or Email or Postal Mail and the honoree is actually notified by email. If tributes are off, or the honoree is not notified by email, no honoree email goes out and the Bcc does not send either.
Collecting a tribute message from the donor does not automatically put that message in the honoree email. What the honoree receives depends entirely on the template you write and the merge fields you include. Add {{gift.tribute_gift_info.message}} to the template if you want the donor's personal message to appear. Use {{gift.tribute_gift_info.name}} for the honoree's name; {{gift.tribute_gift_info.contact_id}} does not resolve to a readable name, so avoid it where you want the honoree's name to show.
Preview a Receipt Before Donors See It
You can preview all three templates from their own editor: the gift receipt, the pledge receipt, and the tribute notification. This lets you check what a donor or honoree will receive before the email is used.
Donor Instructions, on the giving form itself, does not have a Preview button. Unlike these three emails, donors see Donor Instructions live while they fill out the form, so there is nothing separate to preview ahead of time.
- In the receipt editor you want to preview, select Preview.
- Enter the identifier for an existing gift, for a gift or tribute preview, or pledge, for a pledge preview, in your account.
- Enter the email address you want the preview sent to.
- Select Send Preview.
Result
Email preview sent successfully. appears, and the dialog closes.
Warning
Previewing a receipt does not show it on screen. It sends a real email to the address you enter, using the real gift or pledge's donor, amounts, fund, and other details. Because nothing limits which address can receive a preview, treat the identifier and address with the same care you would use for any donor's private information. Do not share a preview email with anyone who should not see that donor's details.
After you preview successfully, Rhythm remembers the last identifier and address you used in this browser. The next preview you open starts pre-filled with those values, even when you open a different receipt on the same giving process.
Permissions
You need Fundraising administrator access to Setup to configure or preview these emails, just as you do to edit the giving process itself.
Validation and Errors
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Access Denied dialog | Your role does not have Fundraising administrator access to Setup | Ask an administrator for access |
| The save is refused about the receipt template | Gift Receipts, Pledge Receipts, or the tribute email is turned on, but no template has been written | Write a template, or turn the switch off |
| The preview dialog lists a missing value | The gift or pledge identifier, or the destination address, is empty | Fill in both boxes |
| "Unable to preview email" | The identifier does not match a real gift or pledge in your account, or the preview request was refused for another reason | Copy the identifier again from the record's options menu, and try again |