Adding a Donation

When we talk about adding a donation, what we are adding is the note about the donation.  In other words, your database through RescueGroups.org is your tool for managing and tracking the money you receive, just like a notebook and pencil, only spiffier and easier!

To add a donation:

1. Click on Add a Donation button.
   
   
2. Enter the information about the donation.  Note that the asterisk, as always, denotes a required field, in this case, the date and the Contact.  That tells you that every donor must be listed as a contact in your organization.  See the section on Contacts.
   
   

Filling out the Add a Donation form

There are 8 fields in the Add a Donation form, as described below:

• Contact: A required field - select a contact from your contacts list or click the plus sign next to the drop-down contacts list to add a contact.  The Add a Contact form opens.
  
• Add the contact to the Donor group by clicking the Yes radio button next to the Contacts drop-down list. Your contact will be added to a contacts list named Donors.
• As with other date fields in your RescueGroups.org account, you can add the date of the donation by clicking the calendar button to move through months and days, or click the calendar sheet icon to select today's date.
• Fill in the amount of the donation.
• The field Inkind type indicates a donation of a product or service, such as a cage or a case of food. 
• Make a note of the purpose of the donation, such as whether it was for a specific animal's care or for spay/neuter or just a general donation.
• Add a comment (what do you want to remember about this donation?)  For instance, a person may say, "Call me anytime you have an animal with a specific medical need," or "Remind me every year around this time and I'll send something."
• Letter sent Yes/No is a notation to you to indicate whether you sent a thank you note.  You can say No the day you receive the donation and change it to Yes when a note is sent.  We recommend you use this field in combination with the Comments field to indicate whether a receipt was needed or sent.

Click Save.

Adding a recurring donation PayPal button to your website

You can create a recurring donation PayPal button on your website so that people can opt to send to PayPal automatically:

• Log in to your organization's PayPal account directly
• Create either a Donation button or Subscribe button in PayPal.
• Add the button code to your RescueGroups.org website by using a custom code snippet (read about custom code snippets in this guide).

Here's an example of a donation button and the option it creates for a donor to specify making their donation recurring.

Donate Buttons

Creating a Subscribe PayPal button

You can also create subscribe buttons and add individual buttons to your website with monthly subscriptions amounts. Example: create a $10 subscribe button, a $20 subscribe button.