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Getting Started With iDonate

Everything You Need to Start Accepting Gifts.

iDonate makes digital fundraising simple for your donors and powerful for your organization. Donors experience a smooth, secure checkout process, while your team gains clean, actionable data to inform decisions, strengthen relationships, and grow revenue.

How Do I Get Started?

Once your organization is onboarded, getting from zero to accepting donations is straightforward. The setup follows a logical progression that mirrors how fundraising actually works. At a high level, you will:

  1. Define what the donation is for.
  2. Connect a payment gateway to securely process donations.
  3. Group fundraising efforts under a shared initiative.
  4.  Create the experience donors will use to give.
  5. Decide where that experience will live.

Create a Designation

A Designation tells both donors and your accounting system where the money is going. This is essential for transparency and for maintaining compliance with 501(c)(3) requirements.

Designations can represent general giving or specific purposes such as programs, funds, or appeals.

For more information, learn how to configure and use designations.

Create a Campaign

A Campaign is the umbrella under which your fundraising efforts live. Think of it as the organizing structure for an initiative like a seasonal appeal or annual drive.

Each campaign can include any number of Giving Channels:

For more information, learn how to create a campaign here.

Setting Up a Payment Gateway

Before you can accept live donations, you will need to connect a payment gateway. This is what securely processes credit card and ACH transactions and deposits funds into your organization’s bank account.

iDonate supports secure, PCI compliant payment processing. During setup, you will:

  1. Connect or create a supported payment gateway account.
  2. Verify banking and organizational details.
  3. Confirm which payment methods you want to offer to donors. 

Once connected, the gateway works seamlessly behind the scenes across all Giving Channels.

Create a Giving Form

Giving Forms are the fastest and most effective way to start receiving donations.

You can launch quickly using a template, then refine the form to match your brand and goals. Customization includes layout, copy, imagery, and even Custom CSS for advanced styling. Organizations can also run A/B tests to continuously improve conversion rates.

For more information, learn how to create a giving form here.

Once published, simply place the provided code snippet on your website and you’re ready to accept donations.

(Optional) Create a Hosted Page

If you do not have a website or want a lightweight standalone page, Hosted Pages provide a simple solution. Hosted Pages allow you to publish a basic page with your Giving Form as the focal point, all hosted on iDonate’s servers.

Optimize and Explore

With your fundraising system live, the real work begins: optimization.

Common next steps include:

  1. Refining Giving Forms with branded colors, imagery, and messaging.
  2. Running A/B tests to improve conversion rates.
  3. Using reporting to understand donor behavior and demographics.
  4. Setting up integrations and webhooks to connect with tools like Salesforce or Virtuous.

Fundraising is iterative by nature, and iDonate is designed to support experimentation, learning, and growth over time.