Donation Forms Recommendation

Felicia Terry 2

Hey Everyone,


I am in the process of creating forms for our organization and am quite surprised with the limited functionality of donation forms.


Has anyone used another vendor to create forms for donations, membership, events, etc.?  Or have anyone contracted for Blackbaud to help them create custom forms?


This may have been discussed previously.  So if it has, I would also greatly appreciate you directing me to that discussion.


Thanks,

Felicia

Gregory Wilson

Felicia Terry:

Hey Everyone,


I am in the process of creating forms for our organization and am quite surprised with the limited functionality of donation forms.


Has anyone used another vendor to create forms for donations, membership, events, etc.?  Or have anyone contracted for Blackbaud to help them create custom forms?


This may have been discussed previously.  So if it has, I would also greatly appreciate you directing me to that discussion.


Thanks,

Felicia

We are also VERY displeased with the lack of form customization.  We are just told to add an attribute, but that definitely doesn't make it any better.  Would love to see BB upgrade their forms to allow us to customize completely.

Christine Dunathan

Felicia Terry:

Hey Everyone,


I am in the process of creating forms for our organization and am quite surprised with the limited functionality of donation forms.


Has anyone used another vendor to create forms for donations, membership, events, etc.?  Or have anyone contracted for Blackbaud to help them create custom forms?


This may have been discussed previously.  So if it has, I would also greatly appreciate you directing me to that discussion.


Thanks,

Felicia

Blackbaud does have someone who is an expert in using the existing functionality of OLX forms to wring every last bit of use out of it. I persevered until I got access to the person. Good luck!

Emily Orvik

Felicia Terry:

Hey Everyone,


I am in the process of creating forms for our organization and am quite surprised with the limited functionality of donation forms.


Has anyone used another vendor to create forms for donations, membership, events, etc.?  Or have anyone contracted for Blackbaud to help them create custom forms?


This may have been discussed previously.  So if it has, I would also greatly appreciate you directing me to that discussion.


Thanks,

Felicia

Following - as I am curious. We found that the Online Express did not handle our Homecoming Weekend multiple event activity as hoped and that the reports from the system didn't seem to synch with the data fields.


I'm needing to create a volunteer opportunities form and it's looking like I'm out of luck from that aspect as well.


- Emily

Miro Bezjak

Any improvements in this area? We are also not satisfied with our ability to customize our giving forms.

Ana Popescu

We have the same problem. Our organization is bilingual and OLX doesn't give us the option to have a bilingual form and I find this strange since I assume they have lots of bilingual clients. What I did in the end I modified the English words to French but still not all fields were available to edit. I really hope with the new Gift management option in NXT they will create more option for donation forms.

James Hudson

You can change text fairly easily with Javascript and we've done something similar to override the default privacy policy link on our OLX form. To change the text for a particular label you'll need to find the id of the element (right click on it and choose Inspect) and edit the id in this code (currently bboxdonation_gift_lblHeadingDonation):

<script type="text/javascript">

    function waitForElementToDisplay(id, time, replacementText) {

        if(document.querySelector('#' + id)!=null) {

            document.getElementById(id).innerHTML = replacementText;

            return;

        } else {

            setTimeout(function() {

                waitForElementToDisplay(selector, time);

            }, time);

        }

    }


    window.onload = function() {

        waitForElementToDisplay('bboxdonation_gift_lblHeadingDonation', 500, 'Some new text');

    }

</script>


You can add extra lines to the window.onload function if you need to change the text of multiple labels.

Ana Popescu

James Hudson, I'm not very good with all these code, but I do have a software engineer husband that might be able to help. Just want to confirm, where exactly do you change the text with javascript? Our website is in wordpress and I just put the code on the page I have for our donation page and that's yet. Wondering if I modify the code that i get in OLX once my form is created or do i go directly on the donation page on my website (right click, inspect and change it there?


Thanks

Ana

Chris Martin

Hi all. Our team working on the next gen donation forms in RE NXT (which are in early adopter testing) would very much like to hear any and all feedback around the various ways you'd like to customize Online Express donation forms but can't. Would anyone who has posted in this thread be willing to add any additional detail about the "customizability" you'd like to see?

Ana Popescu‍ the RE NXT donation form team does have in its idea backlog the idea of forms that can render in different languages based on the detected language setting in the prospective donor's browser. At the moment, there are other more foundational capabilities that need to be added to those forms, so multi-language capability isn't in the plan for this year.


Aside from the support for multiple events that Emily Orvik‍ mentioned in this thread a while ago (which is in the backlog for next gen event registration forms in RE NXT), we'd love to hear more detail about the ways you'd like to customize your giving forms. The more detail you can provide the better! I expect that based on past feedback from other Online Express customers (and customers of other Blackbaud products), we've probably got most of these wishes already captured in the backlog of next gen donation and event forms...but we'd still very much value you sharing your needs here.


Thanks,

Chris Martin

Mary Chase 3

Hi, Chris! Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I’d love to
have the options to not have to add every single attendees names
when purchasing tickets through OLX.. Sometimes people just want to
buy a bunch of tickets and then give them away. On my donation
forms I have to add

“Please note if you are purchasing more than one ticket and don’t
yet know who’s attending, please click “Same as Billing” below, for
each registrant”

 

Unless there’s another way that I’m not aware of!

…Mary
Mary E. Chase 

Advancement Operations Manager

Franklin Pierce University

Rindge, NH
03461

 

M,W,TH: 
603.899.4307

T,F: 
603.785.9219

Fax:
603.899.4369

 

Support our
faculty and students at  www.franklinpierce.edu/giving/

Website |
Facebook | Twitter |

Instagram

Join us for
the Rocky Classic - Franklin
Pierce Athletics Golf Tournament |Monday, July 22, 2019
 Register Here

 

 

Ana Popescu

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply. Sad to hear that the language option is being pushed for another time, I'm very curious what other clients that are bilinguals and use OLX for their donation form do for the French? or they do what James Hudson said, modify the javascript? I might have to look into this more. Here are some things that we would like to see in the OLX forms:

1. On the event forms have the option to add pictures (we had an event and offered goat yoga and really wanted to add a pictures under the option to purchase the ticket)

2. On both, event and donation forms have the option to customized the tax receipt and background of the form (adding a picture or background etc)

3. On the donation form under the in memory or honour donation have an option to add an email to the person to be notified or offer the donor and option to create a ecard to send with a note directly from them.(see attached)

4. Automated recurring gift (I heard this is happening soon) Once a donor registers to become a monthly donor and I process the transaction, the system automatically charge them on the date the choose so i don't have to remember to run that batch twice a month.

5. Donor covers the processing fee. So many systems offer this option now where donor can select to cover the processing fee, it will be nice to see this option included in the donation forms.

I'm sure I'll have more but these are the few came to my mind now.


Thanks

Ana


 

James Hudson

Ana Popescu:

James Hudson, I'm not very good with all these code, but I do have a software engineer husband that might be able to help. Just want to confirm, where exactly do you change the text with javascript? Our website is in wordpress and I just put the code on the page I have for our donation page and that's yet. Wondering if I modify the code that i get in OLX once my form is created or do i go directly on the donation page on my website (right click, inspect and change it there?


Thanks

Ana

You need to put that code on your page somewhere (under the OLX code would probably be the best place in case you need to edit it in future). The line you need to edit is:

waitForElementToDisplay('bboxdonation_gift_lblHeadingDonation', 500, 'Some new text');


Specifically the two bits I've bolded. You use the inspect option on the page to find the first bit, e.g.:



This is the inspector window in Firefox (though pretty much every browser has similar functionality) and in this case I inspected the label for "Make this a monthly gift". The bit you need is the id attribute which I've highlighted in red.

Vicky Wendt 3

Chris, 

We are hoping there is a way a person who has already registered as a Table Host, could go online and add all 10 guests somehow at different times without re-registering himself. Someway they can actually add guests and say they are to be seated at the 'Smith table'. This is the first year we've used RE when we had our yearly big event. We wanted to use any options available in the Event Module and OLX. 


Thank you, 

Vicky Wendt

Miro Bezjak

Chris Martin:

Hi all. Our team working on the next gen donation forms in RE NXT (which are in early adopter testing) would very much like to hear any and all feedback around the various ways you'd like to customize Online Express donation forms but can't. Would anyone who has posted in this thread be willing to add any additional detail about the "customizability" you'd like to see?

Hi Chris,

Thanks very much for the response and for being open to feedback.


These are some of the ways we would like to be able to customize our donation forms:


- Being able to choose when the payment is processed (14th or 28th of the month for example)

- An option for donor to cover the processing fee

- Greater customization of Thank you email (Ability to include a signature graphic, and embedded photos and video)

- An option to choose an installment start date (For example, if they want to start their pledge installments 2 months from their donation date)

- Overall sleeker and more modern look (Which I'm sure your working on).


Let me know if I can expand on any of the above.


Many thanks,


Miro

 

Robin Colberg

Hi Chris, 


Similar to MIro Bezjak, we make recurring charges on the 5th and 20th of each month.  In addition to being able to chose a day, members join all year long, so we'd like to have the option of processing annual donations every month of the year.


Thanks,

Robin




 

Mergen Peries

Ditto on many of the above mentioned:

•    much better customisation of auto receipts (and the email)

•    I know all the RG stuff coming down the line

•    yes table name entry would be good to fix.  Like some kind of personal table page, so the host could update pre event.  Multiple names entry is messy.

•    maybe can't be achieved, but personalised links to forms - ie event form with some basic info pre-filled, or donation for with personalised ask strings (I know of a possible workaround by creating multiple variations of forms with differing ask levels)

•    allow record matching across indiv AND org.

•    integrate properly with consent and new comms prefs in NXT

•    more flexibility with placement of form fields - ie when we have participant attributes,  they get listed per participant in section below and separate from the section for participant names!

•    In reference to your recent post about BB checkout integration - is it only available to USA?  I couldn't see the option for us.  I assume NXT will use it.  Can paypal be added to the checkout options?

•    Yeah, the way to deal with multiple names is messy.

•    Proper phone selection, not just one choice of type for all forms.

•    Better country selections - being tied to RE country table means you have setup all the countries in RE!

•    Event forms – maybe dietary options as a 1st class feature?  Pretty standard question these days?

•    Allow editing of all field names and ability to hide section headings

•    Donation ask levels with descriptions and images

 

Rachel Cavalier

I feel like this is probably a niche situation - but we have one bank account for donations only and a different one for things like ticket payments etc (where the donor receives some benefit in return and we cannot claim Gift Aid).


It would be great if we could combine ticket payments (with the payment going to one account) and donations (with the payment going to another account) into one form so that our supporters wouldn't have to enter all their details twice!

Stuart Pattison 2

On our donate page, the donor has already entered their name, address, donation amount, and several other things by the time we get to the payment section.  We need to use only the Payment Details portion of the form generated by OE, and pass the name, address, and amount in as parameters rather than requiring the donor enter them again.  Also we would like to use the Standard Checkout by default and use the Blackbaud Secure Checkout only for countries where it is required.  How can we accomplish these?

Thanks!   Stu Pattison, WCPE Radio

James Hudson

You could use Javascript to pass the values to the relevant inputs on the form and you can hide them with CSS. The only thing you need to be careful of is making sure that the inputs exist before you try and use them (see the code I posted earlier in this thread for ideas on how to do that).


As for targeting based on location you might be able to use the GeoLocation API in Javascript to determine the location and then load a different OLX forms based on that (one with Blackbaud Checkout and one with the standard checkout) but it might just be easier to use Blackbaud Checkout.

Kari Bird

Chris Martin:

Hi all. Our team working on the next gen donation forms in RE NXT (which are in early adopter testing) would very much like to hear any and all feedback around the various ways you'd like to customize Online Express donation forms but can't. Would anyone who has posted in this thread be willing to add any additional detail about the "customizability" you'd like to see?

Ana Popescu‍ the RE NXT donation form team does have in its idea backlog the idea of forms that can render in different languages based on the detected language setting in the prospective donor's browser. At the moment, there are other more foundational capabilities that need to be added to those forms, so multi-language capability isn't in the plan for this year.


Aside from the support for multiple events that Emily Orvik‍ mentioned in this thread a while ago (which is in the backlog for next gen event registration forms in RE NXT), we'd love to hear more detail about the ways you'd like to customize your giving forms. The more detail you can provide the better! I expect that based on past feedback from other Online Express customers (and customers of other Blackbaud products), we've probably got most of these wishes already captured in the backlog of next gen donation and event forms...but we'd still very much value you sharing your needs here.


Thanks,

Chris Martin

Hello Chris,


We are using UTM codes with our media partner for Google Analytics.  We want to see where our donors come from before they make an online donation.  It appears that some tracking is available in Luminate Online (https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/99581) but not Raiser's Edge/Online Express.  Will the new donation forms in RE NXT be compatible with Google Analytics?  If yes, when will this functionality be available to all clients?


Thank you!

Chris Martin

Hi Kari Bird‍ great suggestion! And yes this is absolutely in the backlog of the team working on these new donation forms. I know the team still has some discovery to do around whether it makes sense to show some of that type of analytic data directly in RE NXT or whether enough of our customers prefer to just see it all in Google Analytics. But yes, supporting Google Analytics with these new forms is a planned future addition. Thanks for sharing the idea!

Chris

Mergen Peries

I’d say better to leave it all in GA.  Maybe continue with some of the basic stats you have in OLX.  Leave UTM reporting to GA.  Seems like a more advanced thing, that if you are using, would probably have GA setup anyway.

 

Chris Martin

Thanks for the feedback Mergen Peries‍. I've passed this along to the donation forms team!


- Chris

Kendra Clarke

Chris Martin:

Hi all. Our team working on the next gen donation forms in RE NXT (which are in early adopter testing) would very much like to hear any and all feedback around the various ways you'd like to customize Online Express donation forms but can't. Would anyone who has posted in this thread be willing to add any additional detail about the "customizability" you'd like to see?

Ana Popescu‍ the RE NXT donation form team does have in its idea backlog the idea of forms that can render in different languages based on the detected language setting in the prospective donor's browser. At the moment, there are other more foundational capabilities that need to be added to those forms, so multi-language capability isn't in the plan for this year.


Aside from the support for multiple events that Emily Orvik‍ mentioned in this thread a while ago (which is in the backlog for next gen event registration forms in RE NXT), we'd love to hear more detail about the ways you'd like to customize your giving forms. The more detail you can provide the better! I expect that based on past feedback from other Online Express customers (and customers of other Blackbaud products), we've probably got most of these wishes already captured in the backlog of next gen donation and event forms...but we'd still very much value you sharing your needs here.


Thanks,

Chris Martin

 

Hi Chris, 

That is definitely unfortunate about not offering bilingual forms - We don't need auto language detect (we can wait for that to be rolled out), but I'm at a hospital foundation in northern Ontario and our hospital counterpart is required to be bilingual and maintain a bilingual designation. I'd just have two separate links for translated forms and translate our customizable piece in house. Very disappointing the product is bilingual in a country that is bilingual. For now, our French constituents will need to donate through Canada Helps. This should really be a priority for Blackbaud in a Canadian market place.
Also - just trying to set up a pledge form, and for individuals that choose to pay annually, there aren't able to choose the month they would like to make their payments, it must be predetermined by the organization. If I'm making a pledge today with annual payment, I wouldn't want to wait months until my first payment. It's not very donor centric. 

 

Dafna Kapshud 2

Hi,

We'd like to start using the forms function on NXT but the one limitation is in the listing of the funds. We have hundreds of funds - in Online Express, we give donors the option of 5 funds and then there is an "other" option where the donor can list the fund to which they would like to donate. The NXT form doesn't have that functionality (I just took the class) which makes it useless for us. Otherwise, i love the functionality of the NXT forms. 

Vicky Hopper

I would love to see the option to add a custom field. Right now it asks for additional fields and only offers "Title" and "Phone" - and I'm still not sure where those actually show up because I selected "Title" and nothing changed on my donation page. We embed the code for the donor to search for matching gift on the donation page. However, there is no way to add a checkbox for "My company matches my gift" and "Employer Name" - both of which would be very helpful in tying it to a matching gift option.

Chris Martin

Hi Vicky Hopper‍. It sounds like you're talking about Online Express donation forms, right? (as opposed to RENXT donation forms?)


If that's correct, I wanted to be sure you knew about the gift attribute options. That section appears immediately below the additional fields section that you mentioned. You can add different types of attributes to your form (yes/no, table, etc.). To do this, you first create the attribute in RE and then in the Online Express form editor, click the Add Attribute button to show your attribute on your OLX donation form. 


When you do this and when a donor submits an online gift, the values for the attribute questions you ask will be written as gift attributes on the gift record of their online donation. Hopefully that helps.


Thanks!

Chris Martin

Blackbaud Product Management

Mary Chase 3

That's what I do. And then I export and sort on the attributes.

Miro Bezjak

Chris Martin:

Hi all. Our team working on the next gen donation forms in RE NXT (which are in early adopter testing) would very much like to hear any and all feedback around the various ways you'd like to customize Online Express donation forms but can't. Would anyone who has posted in this thread be willing to add any additional detail about the "customizability" you'd like to see?

Ana Popescu‍ the RE NXT donation form team does have in its idea backlog the idea of forms that can render in different languages based on the detected language setting in the prospective donor's browser. At the moment, there are other more foundational capabilities that need to be added to those forms, so multi-language capability isn't in the plan for this year.


Aside from the support for multiple events that Emily Orvik‍ mentioned in this thread a while ago (which is in the backlog for next gen event registration forms in RE NXT), we'd love to hear more detail about the ways you'd like to customize your giving forms. The more detail you can provide the better! I expect that based on past feedback from other Online Express customers (and customers of other Blackbaud products), we've probably got most of these wishes already captured in the backlog of next gen donation and event forms...but we'd still very much value you sharing your needs here.


Thanks,

Chris Martin

Hi Chris,


Hope you're doing well! Now that we are one year since you posted about your team working on the next generation of NXT forms, can you please provide an update on where things are at?


Many thanks


Miro

Juliana Lawson

Hi Miro,


I'm the product manager for Next Gen donations so I thought I'd jump in here. I hope you don't mind.  The donation form is now available for all US customers. Canada will be the next (and hopefully soon!), but I don't have a timeline. Let me know if you have other questions.


Best,


Juliana Lawson

Xochitl Nisbet 2

Juliana Lawson:

Hi Miro,


I'm the product manager for Next Gen donations so I thought I'd jump in here. I hope you don't mind.  The donation form is now available for all US customers. Canada will be the next (and hopefully soon!), but I don't have a timeline. Let me know if you have other questions.


Best,


Juliana Lawson

HI Juliana,


Can you tell me when this NXT Donation Form will accept foreign donations? Since this is the only way we can have the recurring gifts automated, this is the form we want to use. However, there is still no way to take foreign donations.


Additionally, we really need the placement of the COUNTRY dropdown to be moved to the bottom of the address block. It interrupts the auto-fill in all browsers and makes it so people have to manually type in their address (then it picks back up and asks to autofill at city). You cannot event default in the U.S. to the country field, it forces you to ask for entry no matter what.


Thanks!!