Why Yes, We Have Had Work Done
Thanks so much for noticing our new look!
If you’ve logged in recently (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?) you’ve noticed that we have a new look, and a new name. Yes, RaiseDonors is now officially Virtuous Raise!
In addition to our new name and logo, you’ll see updated colors reflecting our new identity.
We’ve made this change as part of a series of updated to the Virtuous brand identity. You can read more about what this means here.
But Here’s How it Really Happened
Managing Recurring Gifts isn’t easy (we know…it’s kind of our thing). Donors might call and want to change their gift, or their payment method, someone might miss a payment because they forgot to update their payment method, Projects may change…keeping Recurring Gifts going means that it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on with each Gift.
So we’ve decided to make things a little easier, with an expanded view of the history for each Recurring Gift.
Now, you’ll see a timeline view, listing any changes to a Recurring Gift—including who made the change, what was changed, and when (how and why might still require checking in with your donors, but at least we’ve got the first three covered). We’ll also display any failed attempts, including the reason why a charge may have failed.
Having all of this information at your fingertips means you can more easily help donors who may have questions about their Recurring Gifts, and be more proactive when a recurring charge fails.
Go ahead and check out the new view today!
You Want to Put JavaScript Where?
In our modern age, online fundraising means tracking all sorts of traffic and metrics here there and everywhere. And while Raise is a great tool all on its own, we know that many organizations use a digital smorgasbord of marketing tools, and it’s important for those tools to play nicely together. And now we are sharing like it’s circle time in Kindergarten!
What are we sharing?
JavaScript!
(Yes, seriously.)
While we already support adding tracking pixels via global JavaScript, now you can add custom JavaScript in the confirmation step of your giving forms!
(If you are not someone who routinely gets excited about JavaScript, that’s okay—we promise, this is a good thing.)
Now, you can add tracking pixels without needing access to the source code of your website.
So go ahead and get tracking!
…And the Rest
This update also includes a number of other fixes, tweaks, minor modifications, and assorted nudges. Here’s a roundup of other items released over the last month:
- One of the keys to online fundraising is to increase conversion by reducing friction. And the easiest way to reduce friction is by removing excess fields! (Or removing Velcro, but that doesn’t really apply for online giving.) In that spirit, the Zip Code and Country fields are now optional on payments blocks. Bear in mind that removing these fields may results in additional card declines; with great power, there must also come great responsibility.
- Life is beautiful and life is fleeting—and sometimes, your donation pages are too. Now, you can set your pages to expire, and even set a redirect URL to make sure your donors don’t get lost when you campaign ends. You can even choose to set the page to archive itself (fancy!) when it expires.
- You know the old saying, “The only thing we have to fear is a lack of metadata?” No? Hmmm, maybe that’s not right.) Well now users who rely on the Virtuous CRM+ integration will have nothing to fear, because we’ve added metadata to Gift Notes as part of the integration! You’ll see the Recurring Gift ID, Raise Page ID, Virtuous Terminal ID, and more. Nothing to fear now!
- On average, one out of every four online donations happens on a mobile device (it’s a nice way to break up the doomscrolling). So we’ve made it easier to see what 25% of your donors will experience, with the option to preview the mobile view for your donation pages and forms. Just click the Preview icon, and you’ll see the option to toggle between Desktop and Mobile.
- Want to quickly see which donors opted to cover processing costs? Well, you’re in luck! Now, you’ll see a new “Covered Costs” icon on the All Gifts view, and a new Covered Costs highlight in the Gift detail view. No matter where you look, we’ve got you…covered.
- Naming donation pages can be tough. Will the name make sense to your donors? Will it make sense to staff? (Will it make sense to you an hour later when you are looking for your new page?) Well, now you can eliminate some of the stress; pages can have a public name and an internal name, just for your staff. Win-win! (You’ll still have to remember the name to find your page later, though.)
- Donors giving a Tribute Gift have the option to include an acknowledgement message. Wouldn’t it be handy to see that message in the detail view for a Tribute Gift? Well, now you can! (Sometimes, things just make sense.)
- Filtering Gifts and Recurring Gifts just got easier! (And it was pretty darn easy already.) Now, you can include multiple statuses at once, instead of being forced to choose.
- You can already add awesome icons to donation pages and forms. But what if you hyperlinked those icons? That would be…hyper-awesome.
- If a donor chooses to make a Recurring Gift as a Tribute, you’ll now see the Tribute information on each installment of the Recurring Gift. So, once a Tribute, always a Tribute, as it were.
- New merge tags! By popular demand, we’ve added a merge tag for Premium Fair Market Value in the email builder, so you can include more Premium information in your acknowledgements. And we didn’t stop there! We’ve also added Tribute merge tags, including the Tribute and Acknowledgement details. You asked, we delivered! We like it like that.
- We fixed an issue where default Gift Array values were overriding donors’ custom amounts when toggling between one-time and recurring giving. With gift amounts, there is a time to suggest and a time to listen.
- Safari users were not able to add background images to giving forms. We welcome users from all browsers, so we’ve made sure that Safari users are good to go now.
- We fixed an issue where long Premium names were not wrapping correctly. Because we don’t discriminate based on character count around here.
- Acknowledgement information is now optional for Tribute Gifts. Because no one likes being forced to include extra details when making Gifts in memory of someone.
- We fixed an issue where Projects were being synced to Virtuous CRM+ as non-deductible. No messing with tax deductions around here!
- We made a few styling fixes for image editing, specifically when adding borders and rounded corners to images. We want your forms to look pixel-perfect!
And that's the list! Phew! As always, if you have any questions about these or other features, feel free to contact our support team.