A commitment represents a donor’s promise to give a specific amount over a specific timeframe — or a fundraiser's promise to raise a certain amount. Commitments enable your team to track pledged funds, apply incoming donations toward those pledges, and easily collect remaining balances.

When you create a commitment, you're defining the amount and timeframe for a donor's pledged giving. From there:

1. In sidebar > click Transactions > Commitments

2. Click New Commitment

3. Enter Commitment details > Click Save

The total amount of the commitment. This amount may be funded in one or many donations.

This is the date that the balance of the commitment is due. ☝️ Remaining balance charges are not automatically processed on the due date. Commitments intentionally require a manual review and charge.

The supporter or fundraiser making this commitment. The commitment will be visible on this supporter's profile.

Once a supporter is selected, you'll select from a list of saved payment methods for that supporter. If there are no saved payment methods, you can create one (either card or ACH).

If this committed amount should be added to a Campaign Site Progress bar, you can optionally select the Page Goal where the commitment should be applied.

Once a commitment is created, you can view the commitment, make edits, or take actions like charging a payment or cancelling. Like most records in Funraise, there are several ways to view Commitments.

From a Supporter profile > Click Commitments

From Sidemenu > Transactions > Commitments

In the Commitments section, you can add filters to view a specific segment of commitments. Filter options include:

To export a list of commitments, click the list's action menu (3 dots) > select Export CSV. The export will be available to download in Settings > Exports and will also be emailed to you when it's ready.

Commitments can be cancelled from the Commitment Action Menu (3 dots) > Select Cancel. Cancelling a commitment will change the status to Cancelled.

To delete a Commitment entirely, you can Archive a Commitment. Archiving deletes the record and cannot be undone.

While some commitments may be fulfilled by charging the balance in one action (more on this later), commitments are designed to allow for installment payments that can be applied to the commitment balance. For example, a donor may pledge to give $5,000 over the next two years, and they would like to make $2,500 yearly payments. For these cases, you can enter (or run) Transactions and connect them to the commitment.

When creating an offline Transaction (in the platform) you can assign the transaction to a Commitment.

1. Create a New Transaction

2. Under Option Items > Select the appropriate Commitment

You can add an existing transaction to a commitment from the Transaction profile > General > Commitments.

When creating or editing a subscription in the platform, you can assign a commitment. After assigning a commitment to a subscription, future payments for that subscription will be automatically applied to the commitment balance.

You can charge a commitment's remaining balance at any time. When you use this action, the remaining balance will be charged to the commitment's linked payment method immediately and the supporter will receive a donation receipt via email (if they have an email address).

1. From the Commitment > click Charge Remaining Amount

Supporters can also view their commitments and pay their commitment from the Donor Portal.

1. Log into the Donor Portal > click Commitments

2. Select a Commitment > click Make Payment

You can optionally activate a prebuilt Automated Email Campaign to send emails to your Supporters reminding them to fulfill their commitments. These emails can be edited just like other Email Campaigns and are defaulted with helpful content.

Emails are defaulted with a button merge tag link that directs users to the Donor Portal, where the Supporter can login and make a payment for the Commitment. This defaulted button link is our recommendation, but you can remove that link and choose to direct donors to another page.

Fundraising Commitments (Fundraising Minimums) is a common strategy for events that require participants to pay or fundraise a minimum amount. If the participant does not raise the minimum amount required by the deadline, you can charge the remaining balance.

Fundraising Commitments use the standard Commitment functionality, although they allow a Fundraiser to create the Commitment (by creating their fundraising page) and the Fundraiser can add their payment method during sign up.

Mission trips — Mission trips or travel service opportunities can be large expenses for participants. Fundraising is an easy way for participants to cover their costs while enabling organizations to more accurately plan for trips.

Endurance Fundraising — Fundraising runs and walks can have a minimum amount that is required to participate. This amount usually covers reserving race fees, t-shirts, etc. Participants are encouraged to fundraise for this amount (and more!) because it's a win-win-win.

To activate and configure Commitments for a Campaign Site, access your Campaign Site Peer-to-Peer settings.

This is the minimum amount you're requiring Fundraisers to raise. Donations to the fundraiser's page will count towards their commitment minimum.

This is the date you're requiring fundraisers to have raised the minimum by. Commitment charges do not happen automatically on this date. Commitments are manually reviewed and charged. ☝️ Editing the Commitment Amount or Due Date in your Campaign Site settings will not update existing Commitments.

Your fundraisers can view their Commitment details from their fundraiser page settings. In page settings, fundraisers can view the Commitment Amount, Remaining Amount, and Due Date. Fundraisers can also edit the payment method attached with their Commitment.

The fundraiser receives a notification email when a commitment is:

When the Remaining Amount is charged for a Fundraiser Commitment, the fundraiser will receive a receipt with details about the payment. This receipt email template matches your Campaign Site's Giving Form receipt design, although the body text is overridden with clarity about the payment. The body content in the receipt will be: Thank you [Donor Name]! This donation was charged to complete your Fundraising Commitment and will count towards your fundraising goal.

If you're building a pledging or commitment strategy, it's good to know what else we have in the works for this feature. These items are in progress, stay tuned :)