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Chapter 20 — Fundraising campaigns

Module code: PARTNERS (campaigns live inside the Partners module) Home: /campaigns/

Further detail, including the WhatsApp options and social posting, is kept at docs/CAMPAIGN_FUNDRAISING.md and docs/CAMPAIGN_SOCIAL_POSTING.md.

20.1 What the module is for

Fundraising campaigns let a school, charity or welfare organisation raise money for a stated purpose, publish a page that can be shared on social media, and record every contribution against the accounting ledger.

Donors are partners. A donor is not a separate kind of record — it is a partner with a donor type, which means one organisation that both donates and supplies is one record, not two.

20.2 Three ways a campaign is used

Kind Example
Project Raise a fixed sum for a defined project — build a classroom block, buy a school bus
Student cost Cover one named student's annual costs — tuition, uniform, books. Links to the student and can pre-fill a fee waiver.
General Unrestricted giving with no specific target

A contribution can also be recorded with no campaign at all. That is a first-class case, not a workaround — someone hands over a donation and it is recorded.

20.3 Screens

/campaigns/                              dashboard
/campaigns/all/                          campaign list
/campaigns/create/                       new campaign
/campaigns/<id>/                         detail — stats, breakdown, contributions
/campaigns/<id>/edit/                    edit
/campaigns/<id>/close/                   close
/campaigns/<id>/traffic/                 public page traffic
/campaigns/<id>/whatsapp-setup/          WhatsApp copy pack
/campaigns/guide/                        fundraising guide
/campaigns/social-accounts/              connect social accounts
/contributions/                          contribution list
/contributions/create/                   record a contribution
/contributions/<id>/                     contribution detail
/campaigns/public/<token>/               the public page — no sign-in

20.4 Setting up payment options

Before publishing a campaign, configure how people can actually pay. This is done in Accounting, under payment methods (Chapter 12).

For each inbound payment method set:

Field Appears on the public page as
Instructions The account number and reference to quote
QR image A scannable code
Payment link A button through to an external payment page

A campaign page with no payment options tells a willing donor nothing about how to give.

Also set the company's social links and donor WhatsApp number on the company record — they appear in the footer of every public campaign page.

20.5 Creating a campaign

Screen: /campaigns/create/

  1. Select Create campaign.
  2. Enter: - Name — what a donor will read. - Kind — project, student cost, or general. - Description — the story. This is the page's main content, so write it for the donor, not for the file. - Target amount. - Student or campus, for a student-cost campaign. - Cost breakdown — structured lines with a description and an amount. Showing that a figure is made of tuition, uniform and books is far more persuasive than a single total. - Waiver percentage or amount, where the campaign is meant to reduce a student's fees.
  3. Save as Draft.
  4. When ready, set the status to Active. Draft campaigns are not publicly reachable at all.

A cost centre is created automatically for the campaign, so its income and spending can be reported separately in the analytic reports (Chapter 12).

20.6 The public page

Screen: /campaigns/public/<token>/

Reachable without signing in, so it can be shared anywhere. From top to bottom it shows:

1. Header — company logo, company name, campaign name
2. Progress — raised so far, the goal, a progress bar, percentage funded
3. Cost breakdown — the structured lines
4. Payment options — QR codes, payment links, and written instructions
5. Footer — social links and WhatsApp

Individual donor names and amounts are never shown. Only the aggregate is public, which is what lets you share the page without a privacy problem.

Sharing it

The campaign detail page carries a Share card with a copy-to-clipboard link and a preview. It appears once the campaign is active.

Add ?source= to the link to track where visitors came from — for example ?source=facebook or ?source=newsletter. Visitors arriving with a source see a short acknowledgement, and the traffic report groups by it.

The donor chat

The public page carries a small help widget answering the questions donors actually ask: how to donate, what payment options exist, what happens after paying, how to get a receipt, and how to make contact.

It is rule-based — a fixed set of answers, with no external service involved, so it costs nothing to run and sends nothing anywhere.

A Continue on WhatsApp button hands the conversation over with a message already filled in, based on the topic the donor picked.

20.7 WhatsApp

Screen: /campaigns/<id>/whatsapp-setup/

Most organisations do not need a paid messaging platform. This screen produces a copy-and-paste pack for the free WhatsApp Business App:

  • A greeting message.
  • Three quick-reply button labels.
  • Saved replies for /donate, /afterpay and /contact.

Copy each into the WhatsApp Business App on the phone that answers donor messages. A donor then gets an immediate, correct answer at any hour, without any integration.

20.8 Recording contributions

Screen: /contributions/create/

  1. Select New contribution.
  2. Enter: - Donor — a partner. Create one if new (Chapter 5). - Campaign — or leave blank for an unrestricted gift. - Amount and date. - Channel — the payment method used. - Reference number — the transfer or cheque reference. - Source — free text recording where the donor came from, such as facebook or direct.
  3. Save.

Posting to accounting

Post to accounting on the contribution creates and confirms a real inbound payment with a balanced journal entry. Until this is done, the money is recorded in the fundraising module but not in the books.

Posting is safe to attempt twice — a contribution already posted is left alone.

Applying contributions to school fees

For a student-cost campaign, contributions can be applied against that student's fee vouchers — see Chapter 19, section 19.12. Each posted contribution is applied once and only once.

20.9 Traffic and analytics

Screen: /campaigns/<id>/traffic/

Panel Shows
Summary Page views, unique visitors, unique addresses, views today
Top countries Where visitors are
Top referrers Which sites sent them
Source tags Which ?source= links are working
Visit history The detail, paginated

Filter over 7, 30 or 90 days.

Read it alongside the contributions: a campaign with heavy traffic and few contributions has a page problem — usually missing or confusing payment options — rather than a reach problem.

20.10 Closing a campaign

Screen: /campaigns/<id>/close/

Closing stops new contributions being recorded against it. The public page remains reachable and shows the final total, which is what a donor who gave wants to see.

20.11 Routine

Weekly
  [ ] Record and post contributions received
  [ ] Reconcile posted contributions against the bank
  [ ] Review traffic against contributions for the active campaigns
  [ ] Answer donor messages

Per campaign
  [ ] Update the description as the project progresses — a page that has not
      changed in three months reads as abandoned
  [ ] Close the campaign when the target is met and let the page show the total

20.12 Troubleshooting

Symptom Cause Fix
The public link shows nothing The campaign is still a draft Set it to Active
The public page shows no way to pay No inbound payment methods with instructions, QR or link Configure them in Chapter 12
A contribution is not in the accounts It was recorded but never posted Use Post to accounting
A donor cannot be selected They do not exist as a partner Create the partner first
Contributions do not reduce a student's fees They are not posted, or the campaign is not linked to the student Post them; check the campaign kind and student
Traffic shows nothing The page has not been shared, or filters are too narrow Widen the period
Source tracking is empty Shared links carry no ?source= Add it to each link you publish
Donor names appear somewhere public They should not — only aggregates are public Report it; the public page shows totals only