A campaign is a fundraising effort with a name, dates, and a money goal, such as an annual appeal. You can credit gifts and pledges to a campaign, then use appeals to break the results down further. See Add and Manage Appeals in a Campaign.
When to Use This
Create a campaign when you start a fundraising effort that needs its own goal, giving history, or both. Edit a campaign when you need to update its dates, goal, image, or status.
Prerequisites
- You need permission to manage Fundraising campaigns.
- To change an existing campaign, find and open it first. See Find, Open, and Delete a Campaign.
- Go to Fundraising & Gifts › Campaigns.
- Select Create Campaign. To change an existing campaign, open it and select Edit from its record page.
- Enter a Name:. Rhythm requires only this field. When you create a campaign, Rhythm suggests an ID: based on the name. You can change the suggested ID before you save, but not after.
- Optionally set a Campaign Start Date: and Campaign End Date:. If you enter a start date while the end date is blank or earlier than the start date, Rhythm sets the end date to one month later. You can still change it yourself.
- Optionally enter a Goal:. Rhythm always labels this amount USD, regardless of the currency your Rhythm account otherwise uses.
- Optionally upload an Image. Rhythm can show this image on the Portal when donors give to the campaign.
- Set Status: to Active or Inactive. Before you rely on status to keep a campaign from being offered, review the warning below.
- If this campaign should use a different fundraising product than usual for one or more funds, turn on Override Fundraising Products and set the fund-by-fund choices. See Choose Which Product a Campaign or Appeal Uses for Each Fund.
- Add Notes if you want to record anything about the campaign for your own staff.
- Select Save Changes, or choose Save & Add Another from its drop-down to save this campaign and immediately start another one.
Result
The campaign is created or updated, and you land on its record page. Staff can now choose it from the Campaign: picker when they record a gift, pledge, or recurring gift.
Tip
If you bulk update or import gifts to recode them to this campaign, use the campaign's ID: field in your file, not its name. A bulk update that supplies the campaign name instead of the ID will fail.
Warning
A campaign’s dates and status are informational only, so Rhythm does not use them to open or close giving. A campaign still accepts gifts and pledges after its end date, and marking it Inactive does not remove it from the campaign picker. Every campaign appears there, whether it is active or inactive. If you need to stop new giving from being credited to a campaign, use your own process instead of relying on the campaign’s dates or status.
Editing a Campaign
When you save changes to an existing campaign, Rhythm replaces the whole record. If Override Fundraising Products is turned on and one fund in your override list has become inactive, saving the campaign again removes that fund’s row from the saved overrides. If you are not sure everything you set up is still there, check the override table after saving.
What Can Stop the Save
- No name entered. Rhythm blocks the save and marks the Name: field until you enter one.
- An uploaded image from outside your own account. Upload the image through this form’s own upload control.
Related
To find a campaign to edit or remove one entirely, see Find, Open, and Delete a Campaign. To see how a campaign is performing after it starts, see Review a Campaign's Progress.