Give Now

The Give Now experience was designed from the ground up to be the most streamlined and simple giving interface we could possibly provide that supports both pre-identified and unidentified users. Just like our original Giving module, Give Now is 100% mobile-friendly.

Each Give Now Config allows one and only one designation. There is no support for tribute, in honor of, or in memory of gifts. We collect the absolute bare minimum name and address fields: Only the billing address, and only the fields necessary to complete AVS for the credit card charge. It supports only one-time and monthly-perpetual gifts.

Since we've taken some of the features that donors may be looking for away, we've also provided a link to the classic giving form, with the label, "Or I would like to explore all of my gift options."

You may optionally provide 1-3 suggested donation amounts, as well as a separate initial gift amount to be pre-selected; not required to be one of your suggested amounts. If no suggestions are provided, only the amount input will be displayed.

When a donor arrives pre-identified, if they are satisfied with the default gift amount, they can make a gift in as little as 3 steps:

  1. Click the "Give Now" button

  2. Provide their credit card details

  3. And click the "Give Now" button on the credit card form

Pre-identification

The screen shots above show the experience for pre-identified users. In these cases, a special value has been placed in the URL that identifies the donor to us. The parameter name is MC, and all links (regardless of whether or not they link to a page on AlumnIQ) in emails sent by the AlumnIQ Mail module will have it applied automatically -- you don't have to do anything! To rephrase, if you link to a page not controlled by AlumnIQ, the link will have an MC parameter appended; and if that page embeds a give now form, the constituent who clicked the link will still be pre-identified. If a pre-identified donor makes a gift, the pledge will automatically be matched to their XID.

Donors may opt to click the "Not <name>?" link to modify their name, email, or address information. Doing so will remove the automatic xid match.

This is also what a donor will see if they arrive at the page on which you've embedded the Give Now Form without the MC url parameter.

Appeal Code

In addition to donor identity, we capture one (and only one!) more piece of useful information from the URL: Appeal code. No matter how it got there or where it came from, if the URL of the page on which you've embedded a Give Now Form contains an appeal code, we'll pass that through to AlumnIQ to save in the gift details.

Embedding Give Now Forms

On the "view" page for every give now config, we provide two methods for embedding give now forms in pages.

The first is a JavaScript snippet that you can drop onto any page, for example, in your school's website. When you use this method, an iframe is created at the location where you include the JavaScript snippet, so location matters. You are also responsible for providing the iframe a correctly sized container: it will never be wider than the box you put it in! The iFrame's height will adjust automatically to prevent scrolling of its contents; so it is recommended that you do not place it inside a fixed-height container.

If you are embedding multiple givenow forms in the same page (not recommended, but...) it is critical that each embed has a unique id attribute. A symptom of not making them unique is that you see the same config in all givenow includes on the page.

You may also embed give now forms in AlumnIQ CMS pages. Since we don't allow you to include JavaScript in pages, there is a special token that will be converted to the JavaScript for you when the page is displayed. The token is also listed for you on the give now "view" page, and resembles: {{give-now:some-special-value}}

Styling Give Now Forms

Give Now inherits the same theme (css) from your public-facing pages on AlumnIQ. With appropriate permissions, you may make changes in Admin » System » Public Site Skin but we recommend that you coordinate with us to achieve the best results.

Customizing Give Now Forms with URL Parameters

Something our customers have been asking for since we originally launched support for online giving was the ability to pass URL parameters to customize the giving form. This is now possible via Give Now! And it even works for Give Now forms you embed off-site.

Whatever URL you would normally use to direct someone to your Give Now form (remember, it can be embedded on your other web properties) can be augmented to customize the amount and the fund, and you can include an xid to identify the constituent.

  • iqamount: Override the configured default amount with the parameter iqamount, as in iqamount=4500. Provide an integer number of cents. The value shown here would result in a $45 default gift amount.

  • iqfund: Override the configured designation with the parameter iqfund, as in iqfund=ABC1230004. Provide your school's internal Fund ID for the fund you're interested in (not the fund name, and not a value specific to AlumnIQ). Note: Requires that the fund has been provided to AlumnIQ via warehouse sync.

  • iqxid: Identify the constituent with the parameter iqxid, as in iqxid=000055555. This is your internal ID Number for the constituent.

So, if you embed a Give Now form at your-school.edu/give, then you could customize the way that I see that form by sending me this link:

your-school.edu/give?iqamount=50000&iqfund=XX99A45&iqxid=000000001

Regardless of what the default experience is, I would see a default gift amount of $500, whatever name is assigned to fund XX99A45, and my first and last name will be pre-filled -- and if I make a gift, my xid will be pre-filled on that gift.

Note that for privacy and security reasons, an XID-based identification will only ever result in name pre-population and automatic XID match; the billing address fields will be left blank and require user input to complete the gift. As previously mentioned, if you use our email module to send the link then it will include a more secure identifying parameter that we can use to match and pre-fill the identity and all of the billing details, where available.

Updating a Give Now form without a page reload

The Give Now JavaScript embed also adds a new method available on the window object which allows you to update a few elements of the form:

window.iqGiveNowUpdate(iqfund, iqamount, formId);

For each of the three parameters, if you exclude them, they will continue to use the default specified by the giving form and/or override values found in the URL.

  • iqfund

    • You may pass null to indicate no intent to override.

    • If you specify an iqfund (your id for the fund, not ours), this fund will be used. (Must be marked as active in our funds table.)

    • If you don't specify an iqfund, but there is an iqfund in the URL parameters, that fund id will be used. (Must be marked as active in our funds table.)

    • Else, the fund configured in the Give Now form will be used.

  • iqamount (⚠️ provide this value in cents: $45 is 4500)

    • You may pass null to indicate no intent to override.

    • If you provide an iqamount value, it will be used as the default gift amount.

    • If you don't provide an iqamount value, but there is an iqamount url parameter, that value will be used.

    • Else, the default amount configured in the giving form will be used.

  • formId

    • You may pass null to use the formId from the initial page load. (The one embedded as data-form="XYZ" in your <script> tag.)

    • If you provide a formId, the Give Now frame will use that form. This affects the default gift amount buttons, default gift amount (unless you override it as described above), and fund (unless you override it as described above).

⚠️ Please note that calling this method does not allow for overriding the AppealCode.

You may also call window.iqGiveNowUpdate(null, null, null); or simply window.iqGiveNowUpdate(); to reset the Give Now form to its original state at page load.

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