Record a check or offline gift for a campaign
Updated 2 weeks ago
Record a check, cash gift, wire transfer, or other payment your organization has already received against a campaign's fundraising destination. You can use a pooled campaign designation without selecting an individual recipient or applying the gift to a sponsorship schedule.
These steps work whether or not your organization sends donation records to another system.
Before you start
Confirm the campaign and its intended designation already exist. See Campaign Setup if you still need to set them up.
Make sure you can access the donor, campaign, and Add Donation action.
Have the amount, gift date, payment method, and any check or reference number available.
If the payment is a donor-advised fund grant or IRA/QCD distribution, follow Record a received DAF grant or Record a received IRA/QCD gift for the financial owner, recognition, and acknowledgement details. A check is a payment method; it does not by itself identify the giving source.
Enter the gift
Open Donors and select the donor who made the gift.
Open Add giving > Add Donation, or choose Add Donation if it appears directly on the profile.
In Designation, type the campaign or designation name. Search even if it is not among the initial options.
Select the intended designation. Check its program name if several results have similar labels. For example, select the pooled Winter Meals designation in the Winter Meals campaign when that is the purpose of the gift.
Enter the amount and gift date. Choose Check, Cash, Wire Transfer, or External Processor to match how the money was received. For a check, enter the check number and deposit date when applicable. Keep the gift date and deposit date separate.
Leave sponsorship coverage unselected when the gift belongs in the campaign's general pool. Do not choose an unrelated child or recipient to complete the form.
Complete any other fields required by your organization. Review the notes and acknowledgement options.
Select Save. Review the Confirm donation summary, including the donor, allocation, payment method, and acknowledgement plan, then confirm.
You are recording money already received. Do not select an option to charge the donor again.
Check the saved record
Open the saved gift and confirm the donor, campaign designation, amount, gift date, payment method, and any check number or deposit date. Use Donations Table to find and review donation records.
A recorded acknowledgement and sending a receipt are separate actions. Confirm the acknowledgement and delivery options selected for this gift rather than assuming that saving sent an email.
When one payment covers several destinations
If the payment is an additional gift to divide across campaign designations, use Split Donation and enter each allocation once. If the check pays existing sponsorship commitments, use the appropriate commitment-payment workflow. See How do I record one check for multiple sponsorships? to choose the right entry method.
Troubleshooting
I cannot find the campaign designation. Search by its name. If it is still missing, ask an organization administrator to check your campaign access and whether the designation is active. If no pooled designation exists yet, review Campaign Setup rather than assigning the gift to an unrelated recipient.
The gift has the wrong designation. Find the existing donation and review the correction needed. Do not enter a second donation to fix the first.
The gift is saved in Gratona but missing from another system. Review the integration that sends your gifts and its history. Saving a donation in Gratona does not confirm delivery to an external system. If you use that workflow, see Map campaign donations to Bloomerang with Zapier.