GPS for Your Donations (well… sort of.)

Have you ever wondered what brought your donors to your DonateQ Giving Page?  

For example, your online giving program is live and going strong.  You’ve promoted Online Giving through your website, in printed material, and Newsletters.  But now you’re curious: which of these methods motivated my donors to give?  With the use of DonateQ’s “Appeal Codes” you can.

What is an Appeal Code?
An Appeal Code is any alpha-numeric value you place at the end of your Giving Page URL (a URL is the standard term for a web site address).

What would my Giving Page URL look like with an Appeal Code?
Here is an example of a Giving Page URL: secure-q.net/Donations/Example/1234.  To add an Appeal Code add a / followed by the Appeal Code you would like to use.  For example: secure-q.net/Donations/Example/1234/appealcode.

Let’s say you want to know which donations came directly from your organization’s website vs. donations which came from the link in your Newsletter.  You can create Appeal Codes for each of these. We’ll call the Appeal Code linking from your website, “Website” and the one linking from  Newsletter, “Newsletter”:

  • secure-q.net/Donations/Example/1234/Website
  • secure-q.net/Donations/Example/1234/Newsletter

Next, you would take these updated Giving Page URLs and update them to your website and Newsletter.  With your new links in place, any donor who follows one of these links and submits a donation will have the corresponding Appeal Code reflected in your Donations Reporting.

Sounds easy enough, but how do I see the Appeal Codes in Donations Reporting?
Your Donations Reporting has a list of Available Fields which you can choose to include in your reports.  One of those available fields is called “Appeal Code.”  When you run your Donations Reporting with the “Appeal Code” column included, any transaction received through a Giving Page URL appended with an Appeal Code will reflect that Appeal Code.

Appeal Code Reporting

Leverage the use of Appeal Codes the next time you promote or communicate with your donor base.  It can help you better understand what motivates and connects with your donors and inspires them to give.

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The DonateQ software makes it easy for you to accept donations online. DonateQ offers multiple giving pages, the ability to set recurring donations, store donor accounts and more.  For more information on DonateQ, please visit our web site here.