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So many options, so little time!

By: GiveSendGo on | Comments: 2
So, you started a crowdfunding campaign. You went through the 3 steps of building your campaign and connecting it to our processor and now have begun to share it.  Did you know you now have a whole dashboard for your campaign that offers options and extras that help you share,customize and track your campaign?  

First login to your GSG dashboard and hover over your campaign. Click on 'Campaign Dashboard' to go to that campaigns dashboard. Once there, you should see a menu of all the different options available to you. Lets go over them: 

You should first see your Weekly reports displayed on the dashboard. How many donors, amount raised, etc.  This is what is shown when the Analytics tab is clicked on.  Above the Analytics tab on the left hand side you can click view campaign to go to your actual campaign url, and above that is your name and an enabled/disable button that you can toggle back and forth to enable and disable your campaign. 

Underneath the Analytics tab is the Audio message. 
You can record a 60 second audio message from any desktop or laptop computer (mobile devices do not have this option to record, but they can listen to a recording)  This audio message will show on your campaign page under the header image with a little play button. You can change this message as often as you would like to give people a personal message or update when they visit your campaign. Its an unique feature to GiveSendGo and can make your campaign connect to even more people. Be creative in using this as people will be drawn back to your campaign if they know it has been updated. 

Next we have the Recipient Details tab. 
Under this tab you will see who was set up as the recipient of the campaign and whether they have connected successfully to our processor. You can also login to the processor from this page if you want to check your balances and payout schedules etc.  At the bottom of this page you will see a place for a secure upload of verification documents. This is not needed often. Only upload a document if you have been in communication with someone from the GSG team they have discussed needing you to upload additional verification. 

The Campaign Edit tab will allow you to edit all the steps you went through when creating your campaign. Your goal amount, your campaign title, header image/ video, campaign story. This tab will open up and will look just like what you saw during set up. 

The Comments tab will show all the comments people have made on your campaign. The encouraging words, prayers and more. We have filters on comments to keep out bad language etc, but please let us know if any ever get by the filter. Only people who have given to your campaign can write a comment. It is not just for public commentary. 

The Coupon code tab is something we are still developing as we are working with processors to try to negotiate lower rates so we can offer those to you or your organization.  

You should really stop by the Custom Thank you tab to edit your thank you that gets sent out to every donor.  A generic thank you email goes out unless you customize the Thank You email in this tab.

The Donation list tab is self explanatory as it give you a list of all the donations that have been given to your campaign. 

Donation Reports is a little different as it gives you the option to view the reports for both donations you have made ( as long as you used your same email address)  and it will show received donations and then in the third tab it  will give the option to Download reports.  There is also a place here to download the email address of the people who have clicked the pray now button and submitted a prayer for your campaign. 

Donation settings lets you customize what shows on your campaign page under recent donations. You can make all your Givers name show as anonymous if you would like, You can turn on/off allowing people the ability to comment when making a donation and the option to just show Giver names and not the donation amounts given.  Default is that anonymous is off, comments are on , and donation amounts are shown. 

You can choose to set an End Date on your campaign on the next tab. That will remove the Give Now button and disable your campaign when that date comes to pass. 

If you want to add more images to your header so it becomes a scrolling header, you would add and remove images under the Gallery Images Tab.

Mailing Address 
allows you to collect mailing addresses of your Givers. This is set as default to off as people want to give as little information about themselves online . You do not want to discourage givers if they do not want to add a mailing address. But we also understand that you may need to collect addresses so you do have the option of requesting your givers to fill out their address after giving the donation. (We do make it optional even if you request it.) 

Offline Donation is a place to put any donations you have received that has not been processed through your campaign. Maybe someone gave you a check for $200 and you want to make sure it shows in your campaign total. Fill out the Offline Donation tab and it will show on the campaign page.  You can fill as many or as few details. If you put an email address the Giver will get a thank you and a receipt for their gift. 

Private Settings is usually counter intuitive to how crowdfunding works as usually you want every one to find your campaign, but we realize occasionally there may be a private fundraiser that you only want to share with certain people and not the world . You can then turn this on and only people with the link will be able to find the campaign. It wont be seen in searches etc on GSG. 

You can turn off the ability for people to send you prayer messages. Just click Prayer Messages and toggle allowing prayer messages on or off. 

Add Prayer Requests to your campaign page to let people know specific things they can be praying for.  They will show in the prayer request box underneath your campaign story. 

When your campaign has ended or you have reached your goal, visit the Success Story tab to share a testimony of what you were raising fund for and how your fund raising went. We love to hear the stories of how God used you! 

The Teams tab is not yet fully functional, but we are working to figure out the best way to allow you to fundraise as a team! 

The Updates tab allows you to post updates and share them with your friends and followers. Post often to allow Givers to continue to be a part of your story. 

Click Widgets to get a snippet of code to embed on your website or blog to share your campaign there. 

And last but not least, we have the delete tab, just in case you need to delete your campaign for any reason. 

Like I said, we have so many features and options. Now stop just reading about them and go check them out! 


Happy Fundraising!
Shine Brightly! 
 
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What the Tweet?

By: GiveSendGo on | Comments: 3
Here is our final post on Twitter as we moved away from the platform that has become a one sided breeding ground for hate speech. 

"Thank you to our past processors WePay, Stripe and PayPal for helping us get started with GiveSendGo. Its been great. Even more thankful for alternate processors for the future! #Freedom #ShareHope #GodLovesEveryone #Everyoneneedshope"   

We just wanted to let people know that we were no longer using the processing platforms we had been using. Critics were relentlessly attacking these payment processors in their anger, after not being able to get GiveSendGo to bend to their mob mentality.  There have now been over 100 comments on that last twitter post.

So we decided we would share our thoughts on some of those comments here on our blog: So here we go...

"I'll be contacting Stripe, PayPal and WePay directly about
@GiveSendGo's association with Ali, a wanted person in connection with the Capitol Hill events of last week. Im sure PayPal isn't about to continue to stand with sedition, insurrection and aiding and abetting."
  •  That is fine. As our initial post states they are our 'past' processors. We have been working diligently to move to third party hosting and our own processing. Platforms that won't dictate who we can or can't allow on our site.

"These people raise money for Proud Boys and similar hate groups."
  • This is a misconception.  GiveSendGo does not raise money for anyone. People create campaigns to raise money from their friends, family and social circles.  Also the people who label groups like the Proud boys as a hate group also labels any conservative Christian group as hate groups.  Great organizations that believe in the sanctity of life and the definition of marriage.  So we do not go by the labels of some random website. We imagine soon enough Christianity as a whole will be labeled a hate group for sharing there is only one way to Heaven. Through Jesus. 

"If memory serves organizations that fund terrorism, foreign or domestic can have all their assets seized" 
  • That is probably correct. But we do not fund terrorism. We cooperate with local and federal law agencies to make sure we are compliant with the law. 

"The real question is why is @Paypal
supporting a site that is funding white domestic terrorism."
  • Again according to the post you are replying to, we no longer use PayPal. We didn't like their censorship so we dropped them. 


"GiveSendGo is condoning funding death, murder and terrorism in the United States while using the Lord's in vain while profiteering from the decay of democracy. It's not any of us you'll have to answer to in the end, though."
  • Now this one is crazy. We do not condone funding death and I would love to see your proof on campaigns raising money for funding death. Its easy to just say things with no backing. That's pretty much how reporters do it now a days.  Just say something enough and it becomes "truth"  so why would we expect anything less from the followers.   Interesting that no one minds that our country fights to fund death by abortion. There was over 3million abortions world wide this year!!!  If those deaths don't make you angry then that is the problem.  We know we do not have to answer to the angry mob, just to God and that is why we do what we do. We are prepared to answer to God for our platform. We actually talk to Him daily about it. 

"You’re helping to fund terrorism—and you don’t need two spaces after periods anymore."
  • We are thankful for the grammar help. Even though no one has funded any sort of terrorism on GiveSendGo.  Who, that was arrested at the capitol, used GiveSendGo to go and do destruction?  Yes a few are raising money for legal fees now, because of their bad choices. But that is something totally different. 

"You fund terrorists who murder Americans, including a policeman. The people they attacked (and will be attacking) are also other Christians as well. So your “Christian” organization is an embedded terrorist cell. You are America’s ISIS"
  • Please send over anyone that murdered a policeman that funded anything on GiveSendGo.  Please also send over documentation on how the policeman died ( if you actually care to do the research and see what his family says) 



Our Final statement:

 We are Christians that believe that taking sides in politics is not the answer. The answer is found in Jesus. We will continue to share that hope with everyone that comes on our platform. Right, Left, Good, bad, religious, non religious. We know that if we were going to base who could fundraise on the "goodness" of a person, then no one would be able to fundraise on GiveSendGo, or GoFundMe or anywhere as the Bible clearly states "There is none righteous, no not one"  It is only by the Grace of God that any of us can have the free Gift of salvation. 

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So-called Christian website

By: GiveSendGo on | Comments: 1
What makes a business Christian? 


We have been accused for months now of being a “so-called Christian website”.  That got us thinking.  What should a Christian website look like? Is it possible for a website to be Christian?  

Interesting questions.  What makes Chick-fil-a a Christian company?  Is it that they only serve chicken to Christians?   What defines a business Christian or non Christian?  Is every business either a Christian business or non Christian  and what is that dependent on, is it who they do business with, or who the owners are?  

We came to the conclusion that no business can be Christian.  A Christian is someONE who has chosen to accept the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross and walk in relationship with Him.  Businesses can’t do that. 

So where does that leave Christians who own  businesses?   We know thousands of business owners that love Jesus and follow Him. Some who do and some who do not have the word Christian in their business name. 

We know Christian owners that clean chimneys for people , never once asking whether someone deserved to have their chimney cleaned based on how they spent their weekend.  We know Christians who are accountants that reconcile the books for people that have had an arrest record.  We know Christian doctors who would rush to the bedside of someone who was an instigator in a bar fight.  Just to name a few. 

Each person has a real living relationship with the Lord and each helping people who you might claim “do not deserve it.”   But as it says in Romans 2 ...

 “You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things.”
Romans 2:1 NLT

GiveSendGo is not a called Christian website because we only allow Christians on our site. GiveSendGo is just a platform, created by Christians who want to use their business to share the Hope we personally have found in Jesus.   We know there are many people who come on our site that are raising money that have never have experienced the Love of Jesus.  So we are going to use our little bits of php and HTML, sitting on vast servers known as the internet to serve people. 

To serve those who have lost someone close and are going through a hard time. Maybe it's someone who has had a horrible diagnoses that has rocked their world both physically and financially. Serving families that have started the adeventure of adopting. Or starting a Church.  To serve those who have made  bad decisions and now have to live up to the consequences of those decisions in a court of law.  

At GiveSendGo we won’t ask you if you deserve to start a campaign or if you have the right beliefs or the strongest ones. We won’t condemn you for the mistakes you have made no matter how big. We have made them too.  We instead will introduce you to the one who says He loves you, and who desires a relationship with you , no matter who you are or what you have done.   Because we are thankful that once upon a time someone shared that same Good News with us.

So that we now can call ourselves Christians .
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