title: “Donors”

This guide covers the Donor Management module. If your gallery has not switched it on (the Owner does that in Settings → Extensions), this page will not match what you see — skip it for now.

Donors

For gallery staff. A nonprofit gallery has people who give it money or things without buying anything: a member of the public who writes a check, a local business that sponsors an opening, a foundation, someone who donates framing supplies. Donors is where you keep them, record what they gave, track what they have promised, and produce the tax receipt the donor needs.

Everything here is typed in or imported by staff. Studio galleries have no online Donate page, PayPal giving, fundraising campaigns or grant tracking, and nothing on these screens asks for them. PayPal and Venmo in the payment-method list only say how the donor paid you; neither is connected.

Donors are not patrons

Donors and Patrons are two separate lists. A donor record and a patron record are kept apart, nothing links one to the other, and neither screen searches the other. A collector who also writes the gallery a check for its annual appeal is a patron (for what they bought) and, if you add them here, a donor (for what they gave), and you type them into each list separately.

The consents are separate too. The email consent on a donor record is not the newsletter consent on a patron record, and ticking one changes nothing on the other. See the Patrons guide for the patron side.

Before you start

Two things have to happen, in this order.

1. Turn the extension on. In Settings → Extensions, find Donor Management and press Enable. Only the gallery’s Owner or an Admin sees that button; anyone else reads Ask the owner to enable this extension. If your plan does not include it, the card says so instead of offering a button. Once it is on, Donors appears in the sidebar and Settings gains a Fundraising tab.
2. Complete the eligibility setup. Until this is done, Donors shows Donor Management isn’t set up yet with a Set up Fundraising → link, and no donor data is shown or saved. An Admin or the Owner does it once:
   1. Go to Settings → Fundraising. The heading reads Set up Donor Management, Step 1 of 2.
   2. Type the Organization legal name exactly as the IRS has it, and the EIN in the form 12-3456789.
   3. Press Verify if you like. The answer is informational only (Any verification result lets you continue — verification is informational, not a gate.), so press Continue whatever it says.
   4. Read the 501(c)(3) attestation, tick I confirm the above., and press Activate Donor Management.

Anyone else sees Donor Management is not yet activated on that tab.

Fundraising settings

Once activated, Settings → Fundraising becomes Fundraising settings. These details print on every receipt, so fill them in before your first one. Only an Admin or the Owner can change them; everyone else sees them greyed out.

• Organization legal name, Organization address, EIN.
• Fiscal year starts in: the month your fiscal year begins. Each gift is given its fiscal year when it is recorded, and annual statements are grouped by it, so set this before you record gifts.
• Receipt signatory name and Receipt signatory title: who signs.
• Pledge reminder lead (days) and Pledge reminder interval (days): how far ahead of a due date reminders start, and how often they repeat. The starting values are 30 and 14.
• 501(c)(3) determination letter is still pending from the IRS: adds the pending-determination wording to receipts.

Press Save settings.

The Donors screen

Open Donors in the sidebar. Across the top are four tabs: Donors, Gifts, Pledges and Reports.

On the Donors tab, Search matches part of a donor’s name, email, or the contact person at a business. Narrow the list with Type (Individuals, Corporate, Foundations) and the Active pledge and Unacknowledged gifts boxes. Each row shows lifetime giving, the last gift and how many gifts; a donor with an open pledge is marked ● pledge. Export downloads every donor matching the current filters, as CSV or Excel,, not only the page on screen.

Adding a donor

1. Donors → Donors → + Add donor.
2. Choose the Donor type: Individual, Corporate or Foundation.
3. Type the Display name, the only required field. It is the name on the list and on the receipt.
4. For a person, add First name and Last name. For a business or foundation those are replaced by Primary contact and Contact email.
5. Add Email, Phone and Tags (comma-separated) if you have them. Phone numbers are shown as (555) 123-4567 however you type them.
6. Tick Has consented to fundraising / marketing email only if the donor actually said yes, and choose how under Consent captured via. This box decides whether pledge reminders are emailed to them (see below).
7. Tick Anonymous donor (hide name in public-facing reports) if they asked not to be named.
8. Press Add donor. You land on their page. The address and notes are on the full form: press Edit on their page to add them.

A donor’s page

Click a row to open it. Identity shows contact details, tags and notes, with Edit to change them. Giving summary shows lifetime monetary giving, in-kind gift count, first and last gift, and active pledges. Below are Gift history, Pledges and Acknowledgments.

If your gallery also has Volunteers on, the bottom of Identity offers Link a volunteer record: search, pick the person, and the page then offers View volunteer profile → and Unlink. Admins also get Reconcile fields, which shows the donor’s and the volunteer’s name, email and phone side by side, flags any conflict, and Save to both records writes your choice to both.

Nothing on these screens deletes a donor or a gift.

Recording a gift

From a donor’s page press Record gift; from Donors → Gifts press + Record gift. Either opens Record a gift, three steps: Donor, Details, Review.

1. Donor (only from the Gifts tab). Type two or more letters in Find donor and pick them, or press + New donor, fill the short form and press Create & continue.
2. Details. Choose Monetary or In-kind, then set the Gift date.
   • Monetary: Amount (USD) (must be more than zero), Payment method, Check number when the method is a check, and Payment reference.
   • In-kind: Description (required), Category, Quantity, Unit, and Donor-provided estimated value — not assigned by this organization. You record the donor’s own figure; the gallery does not value the gift. At 500 dollars or more the screen warns Gifts of this value may require IRS Form 8283.
   • Tick Goods or services were provided in exchange (quid pro quo) and give their value if the donor got something back, such as a dinner ticket.
   • Link to pledge appears when the donor has an open pledge.
   • Donation type is your gallery’s own list. + Add puts a new type on it; only an Admin’s addition is kept for next time. Anyone else’s new type is used for that gift only, and a message says it was not saved to the list.
   • Source (e.g. Spring appeal, website, gala), Thank-you letter mailed, Eligible for corporate match (with Matching company and Match amount (USD)), and Notes are all optional.
   • Press Review.
3. Review. Check the summary and press Save gift.

The Gifts tab

Donors → Gifts lists every gift with the donor, total, type, method and source. Receipt and Thank You read Sent when done. Filter by Type, Acknowledged and a From / To date range. Export downloads the whole filtered register, as CSV or Excel.

Importing a batch

For a stack of checks or a collection box, use Donors → Gifts → Import.

1. Press Download template and fill one donation per row. Dates can be MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD.
2. Leave name and email blank, or put Yes in the Anonymous column, for anonymous cash. Those all attach to a single donor called Anonymous.
3. Press Choose CSV…, check the preview, and press the Import button (it names the row count).

A row whose email matches an existing donor is added to that donor; rows are never matched on name, so a row without an email always creates a new donor. Gmail addresses match whatever their dots, a +tag or googlemail.com, the same way the donor form saves them: jane.doe+art@gmail.com finds the donor saved as janedoe@gmail.com. Every other address has to match exactly, because on other providers a dot or a +tag can be a different person. Only your own gallery’s donors are ever matched. An imported row is always a monetary gift, and a blank method is recorded as cash. The result shows Imported, Donors created, Anonymous and Failed, with the problem for each failed row. Import another starts again.

Receipts and annual statements

A receipt is a PDF the donor can use for their taxes. CartonCrew does not email it; download it and send or print it yourself.

• One gift. In Gift history, an unacknowledged gift has Generate receipt. The dialog says Generating a receipt marks this gift acknowledged and locks it from edits. Press Generate, then Download PDF →.
• A year. Press Generate annual statement, choose the Fiscal year, and press Generate. If some gifts that year already have their own receipt, the dialog says so; the statement still includes them. When it is done the dialog says Your annual statement is ready. (a single gift’s says Your receipt is ready.).

Every receipt and statement is listed under Acknowledgments with a Download link, so you can fetch it again later.

Pledges

A pledge is a promise to give later. Create one from a donor’s page with New pledge, or from Donors → Pledges → + New pledge (pick the donor first).

1. Enter the Pledge amount (USD), Pledge date and Due date.
2. Set Installments and Frequency if it is paid in parts.
3. Leave Send automated reminders as the due date approaches ticked, or untick it.
4. Press Create pledge.

You never set a pledge’s status by hand, except to cancel it. It reads active until money arrives, partial once some monetary gifts are linked to it, and fulfilled when they reach the pledged amount.

A pledge is lapsed when it is still not paid in full more than 90 days after its due date. Nobody marks it: the day the 90 days are up it reads lapsed everywhere, including the Status filter on the Pledges tab, and the daily reminders stop. You can still record a payment on a lapsed pledge or press Send reminder now yourself. It stays lapsed until it is paid in full, when it reads fulfilled. A cancelled pledge never lapses.

A cancelled pledge is closed: it takes no payments and gets no reminders, and it stays cancelled whatever happens to a gift already on it: edited, receipted, deleted, moved to another pledge or changed by an import. Its amount received still follows the gifts, so the record of what came in stays true. To record a later gift from that donor, use Record gift on the donor’s page with no linked pledge.

On the Pledges tab, Donor searches every pledge your gallery has, not just the page on screen, and the pages stay available while you search.

Click a pledge on the Pledges tab to open it. It shows the progress, Payments and Reminder history, plus:

• Record payment: opens Record a gift already linked to this pledge. Not shown on a cancelled pledge.
• Send reminder now: always adds an entry to the reminder history; it also emails the donor if they have an email address and their email consent is ticked. The toast says which: Reminder sent (task + email). or Reminder task created. Not shown on a cancelled or fulfilled pledge.
• Mark cancelled: there is no confirmation, so be sure.
• Notes with Save notes.

Automated reminders run once a day for open pledges whose due date is inside the reminder lead, and repeat on the reminder interval until the pledge is paid, cancelled or lapsed. They follow the same consent rule: no consent, no email, only a history entry. The donor’s name appears in the email exactly as typed, as plain text.

Reports

Donors → Reports covers a From / To range and a Gift type.

• Giving by period: totals by Month, Quarter or Fiscal year, with a chart and Export (CSV or Excel).
• Donor segments: each donor’s giving in the range, with Export (CSV or Excel).
• Board / grants summary: legal name, EIN, the period and the totals, with Print for a board packet. Print opens the summary in a new window and your browser’s print dialog; allow pop-ups for CartonCrew if nothing opens. The legal name and EIN print exactly as typed under Settings → Fundraising, as plain text.

Who can do what

When it goes wrong

• The sidebar has no Donors — the extension is off. Ask the Owner to enable Donor Management in Settings → Extensions.
• Donor Management isn’t set up yet — the eligibility setup has not been done. An admin follows Set up Fundraising →.
• Set your organization legal name and EIN in Settings → Fundraising before generating receipts. — fill both in Fundraising settings and try again.
• Monetary gifts require an amount greater than 0. or In-kind gifts require a description. — the gift is missing its amount or description.
• Insufficient permissions — your role can read here but not change anything; ask an admin.
• An import row failed with missing or invalid date (use MM/DD/YYYY) or amount must be greater than 0 — fix that row in the spreadsheet and import just the failed rows again; the good rows are already in.
• Allow pop-ups to print the summary. — the browser blocked the print window.