Add a Donation provides your organization with an easy way to enter donations on behalf of your donors, giving you the freedom to accept donations over the phone or in person and the flexibility to meet your donors where they are.

Additionally, you can now input donations received outside of Harness (cash, checks, etc.) and apply them toward a campaign you’ve created within Harness allowing you to more accurately show campaign goal progress.

From your Harness Dashboard, select the Fundraising tab, then choose Add a Donation. Once there, select + Create New on the right side.

When creating or entering a donation, you can associate the gift to an existing donor or you can create a new donor.

If a donor already exists in Harness, you can create a donation for that donor by selecting Existing Donor, then searching for that donor by name or email address. After locating the donor, continue to Select Donation Type.

If the donor is not already in Harness, selecting the Add New Donor option allows you to quickly & easily create the donor then enter their gift. Start by entering the donor's first and last name, email address, and phone number (optional), then choose Select Donation Type.

When selecting the donation type, you can choose either one-time, recurring (monthly), or Round-Up. You can also choose which campaign the donation will be applied toward. If no campaign is selected, the donation will be applied toward your Area of Greatest Need.

For one-time donations, you'll have the option of selecting from the payment methods card, cash, check, or bank transfer (ACH).

If using the card option, use the "Select an existing card or add a new one" drop-down menu to either choose the card the donor already has on file, or pick the "Save a new card to the donor's profile" option to add a new card. When ready to submit, select Confirm Donation.

NOTE: After confirming and recording a donation using the card option, the donor's gift will be processed immediately and their bank/credit card account will be charged for the donation.

The cash & check payment options are to record donations received outside of Harness. You'll just need to enter the date the donation took place and the amount of the gift. Since these donations were made outside of our platform, the donor will not be charged for the gift by Harness. When ready to enter the donation, select Confirm Donation.

The bank transfer option allows for processing donations via ACH. Use the Select Bank Connection drop-down to either select an ACH payment method already on file or to add a new bank connection (which takes 1-2 business days to add/verify).

Continue by adding the donor's routing & account numbers, read a "Mandate to the Donor" so that the donor can verbally confirm their consent to ACH, select the checkbox stating the donor has confirmed the mandate, enter the dollar amount of their donation, and select if the donor would like to cover the processing fees. When ready to submit, select Confirm Donation.

NOTE: For ACH donations, when adding a new bank account the donor must authenticate their account before any ACH donations can be processed. Once the account is added, Stripe will send micro deposits to the donor's bank account. Within 1-2 business days, Stripe will send one micro deposit to the donor's bank account. The donor will then receive an email from Stripe asking them to confirm a code found in the description of micro deposit on their bank account statement (code format is SM-XXXX).

From the time the micro deposit is sent, the donor will have 8 days to verify their account by confirming the code in the micro deposit's description. If the donor does not complete this verification step, their donation will not be processed, and the verification process would need to be restarted. Once verified, their donation will be processed. If an invalid email address is used for/provided by the donor, this verification process cannot be completed.

After selecting Confirm Donation, you will have the opportunity to review the donation prior to recording (saving) the donation. If any changes are needed, press the Back button to make any necessary edits. Optionally, use the 'Send confirmation communication to Donor' checkbox to notify the donor that their gift has been entered. Record Donation will save the donation in Harness

Once the donation has been successfully recorded, a confirmation window will appear. From here you can enter another donation or view the donor's profile. Their gift will now appear in the Add a Donation 'report' and on your Donations Report.

Want a guided tour? Check out our in-Dashboard walkthrough of Add a Donation.

A donor can have up to six payment methods on file. If you're attempting to add a new payment method for a donor and receive an alert stating "Maximum allowed funding sources reached, cannot add more", this means that the donor already has six payment methods in their donor account. Additional payment methods cannot be added without first removing at least one existing payment method on file. The donor can remove payment methods by logging into their personal donor account, which they can access from any of your fundraising pages. Admins can also remove payment methods on behalf of donors using the View as Donor tool.

Donations entered into Harness using Add a Donation are capped at $25,000.00 each. If you're attempting to enter a large dollar amount, such as $100,000.00, an error message stating "Donations cannot be less than $1.00 or exceed $25,000.00" will be displayed. To enter donations that exceed this cap, you will need to enter multiple smaller donations that are each less than or equal to the donation amount cap. For example, enter four donations in the amount of $25,000.00 if the total donation amount is $100,000.00.

Q: What types of donations can be added using Add a Donation?

A: Add a Donation allows you to enter monetary gifts. You can process realtime donations using a donor's credit/debit card or ACH, and offline donations made by cash or check. In-kind donations, donations of stocks and bonds, or any other type of non-monetary donation are not able to be entered into Harness.
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Q: Will donations added through the Add a Donation tool count toward my campaign goal?

A: All donations added through Add a Donation will apply to the campaign selected when creating/entering the donation. This includes both cash and check donations that were received outside of Harness.

Q: Can I enter donations with a date in the past?

A: Absolutely! You can enter donations received previously or that are taking place at the present.

Q: Is there a donation cap when using Add a Donation?

Q: Can I sell tickets via Add a donation?

A: Not at this time. Only donations can be entered/created through Add a Donation.

Q: Are email addresses required to submit a donation on behalf of a donor, and what do if a donor does not have or did not provide me with their email address?

Q: Is the donor emailed a donation receipt when I create a gift on their behalf?

A: Yes, all one-time & monthly donors will receive emailed donation receipts for donation you create through Add a Donation, except for offline cash or check donations. However, if an invalid email address is provided (an email address with typos or a fake/dummy email addresses), the donor will not receive a donation receipt as the receipt email will be undeliverable.

Q: Can I add a donor's physical address during this process?

A: At this time, only a donor's first & last name, email address, and phone number can be entered when creating a new donor through Add a Donation. However, you can edit the donor's profile after completing the gift by selecting the "Visit Donor Profile" option.

Q: How will manually added cash & check donations appear in my reports?

A: Cash & check donations will appear in your Donations Report and will show either cash or check under the 'type' column. Since these gifts were received outside of Harness and did not process through Stripe, they will not appear in your Payout Report.

Q: What are the processing fees for donations, and are there fees for cash & check donations?

A: There are no processing fees for cash & check donations since these donations are not actually being processed through Harness, just recorded as "offline gifts" received outside of our platform. For all other donations, a full breakdown of fees can be found in our Platform + Processing Fees guide.

Q: How long do bank transfer (ACH) donations take to process?

A: Verification of a new bank account will take between 1-2 business days. Once verified, it can take another 1-3 business days for the ACH donation to process.

A: These donations are unable to be deleted through your Harness Dashboard, so please be sure you need to enter the donation into Harness before doing so. In the event that you do mistakenly enter a cash or check donation and need it to be removed, contact our support team via the blue chat bubble in the bottom left corner of your screen or via [email protected].