Speaking of Clover.

New Feature! Account Management for Your Donors

We’ve just launched a new feature for Clover Donations! Your donors now have the ability to manage their own account with your organization!

It’s super easy for all of your donors to create an account… The next time (or the first time) they make a donation, they’ll be given the option to create their account before they submit their donation. Each time your donor visits your form they can easily sign in. Here’s why account management is great for them and for you:

Why it’s great for your donors

1. Giving is faster and easier
Once they have an account, the donation experience is quite a bit faster. Whenever a donor is logged in, the account information needed to process their donation will instantly and securely appear in the form. This lets them give immediately without needing to re-enter all their information in the form each time they want to give. (We know this is something your people have wanted for a while!)

2. Donors can now manage their own information
Your donors no longer have to call or email you to make updates to their account. They can sign in from any modern device, and quickly update their contact and billing information, view their transaction history, and manage their recurring donations. All in literally just a few clicks. And the account management tool we’ve created for your donors is completely responsive so it looks and works perfectly on desktop computers and mobile devices.

Why it’s great for your organization

1. Saves you time & money
Since your donors can now manage everything for themselves, your organization should handle fewer support requests and information updates. You still have total control over each individual and transaction in the Donation Center, but we’ve taken most of the management tasks that used to be solely on your plate, and placed the tools in the hands of your people. This will save you precious time and ultimately financial resources as well.

2. Helps you maintain better records & communication
Now that your people can have direct control over all of their contact information and billing information, you can rest assured that your records are as current as possible. We’ve also made sure that your donors automatically get notices if their credit card is about to expire, so they’re prompted to update their information. And we’ve made it easy in the Donation Center to identify donors who have registered accounts with your organization. There’s a special “registered” tag assigned to each donor when they create their account. So whether you’re running a report, or just viewing an individual donor, you’ll be able to quickly see their status.

This new feature is currently available to every Clover Donations customer. As with all of our updates, it’s completely free and we’ve rolled it out to everyone who has a Clover Donations account.

If you have any questions about this new feature, don’t hesitate to call us at 805-527-8900 or email us at support@cloverdonations.com.

If you haven’t signed up for Clover Donations yet, now is a great time to check it out!

New Green Thumb: YWAM North Africa

YWAM North Africa has created a robust site that not only is full of information and helpful resources, but looks great as well. We especially like how they have created and used detailed forms very effectively, to let people complete their application online for Discipleship Training School (DTS). They have also created full sets of pages with all the important information in three different languages (English, Spanish and French) to help communicate more effectively to an even wider audience – a great example of a multi-language site!

Unique Ways To Use Clover Donations, Part 1 (Events & Registrations)

We’ve recently posted about using funds for specific campaigns and ways to make your form stand out visually. Because there’s so much flexibility, it’s easy to get creative and use different forms for different purposes. In this post (and probably a couple more down the road), we’re going to highlight some unique ways you can use Clover Donations. In this particular post, we’re going to show you how some people are using forms to handle event ticket sales, and registrations.

1. Create Forms for Event Ticket Sales
If your church or non-profit is putting on an event, whether a concert, gala, fundraiser, conference, or any other type, you can create a form to handle all of the registration, payments, and maintain a list of people attending, so you can handle the process from start to finish.

If you’d like to see what this can look like, here’s a couple forms set up for this:

2. Create Forms for Registrations
Many organizations have setup forms so their people can register and pay for conferences, or retreats. In many cases, there is one flat fee for a conference, or just a couple options for people to choose from, which means the form and funds can be used a little differently. You can see a couple examples below:

There’s also another option to think about when you create your registration form that you can use to help your people. Sometimes, you might want to allow your people to pay their registration fee in installments leading up to the dates of the retreat, conference, etc., especially for more expensive events. In this case, you can use the recurring payment function to allow your donors to set up automatic payments leading up to the event. Also, they can set the end date for their payment to be the date of the event, or the month of the event – whichever works better – so that they are paid in full by a certain date. It’s a nice way to make it easy for registrants to not have to think about getting in their payments on time. Here’s an example of a form that has this option:

Hopefully this gives you a good starting point  - and some ideas – as you create forms for your organization. We’ll highlight additional unique ways to use forms in future posts.

If you have any questions about creating these types of forms, just let us know. We’d love to help you get started. Email questions@cloversites.com or call us: (805) 527-8900

New Green Thumb: Antioch Highland Park

We wanted to point out this site because it has some really great branding that exudes an excellent sense of place. While the site is definitely modern and relevant, we love the historical, black and white imagery of the Highland Park area as a backdrop for the message and content of the site. It is utilized not just on the homepage, but throughout many of the other pages on this site. Besides the visual elements, they’ve also kept the site navigation and content clean and simple. A powerfully focused approach that we think works really well. Also, we love the messaging on each slide of the homepage. It gives you such a clear picture of what this church is all about. Great job Antioch!

Clover Sites 3: Responsive Sites

Hey everyone -

I wanted to take a minute to talk about one of the new features that will be in Clover Sites 3. It’s something we’ve been excited about doing for a long time, and we think it’ll be a great new part of the websites we provide.

It’s called “responsive” design. Without going into too much technical detail, what it means is that a website changes its appearance based on the size of your browser.

There are lots of unique things you can do with responsive sites, but the most common feature is to show a different layout or style to mobile phones vs tablets vs desktop computers.

We built our donation forms in Clover Donations to be highly responsive. You can see an example in action here. If you’re on a mobile device, you’ll see a version that’s made to fit your screen. Or if you’re on a desktop computer, grab the corner of the browser and watch how the layout of the form changes as you make the screen narrower.

When it comes to full websites, there are lots of design changes you can make as the screen size changes. Here are some example sites where you can see the concept. Some are simple – like this one and this one. And others can get much more sophisticated.

Hopefully this gives you a taste of one of the new features we’ll be offering. As always, we try to take care of all the technical aspects of things like this, so you don’t have to even think about them! For our more tech-savvy users, we’ll also be offering a feature similar to the preview in the Clover Donations form editor where you can see your site in different devices as you design it.

2013 Conference Tour

We are excited to sponsor another really great lineup of events this year! It would make our day if you’d stop by the Clover booth and say hi! We will be featuring both Clover Sites and Clover Donations at most of these events. We hope to see you there!

Here is our conference schedule for 2013:

Advance: March 18-21 Raleigh, NC

Association of Fundraising Professionals: April 7-9 San Diego, CA

Non-Profit Technology Conference (NTEN): April 10-13 Minneapolis, MN

Catalyst West: April 17-19 Orange County, CA

Exponential: April 22-25 Orlando, FL

Catalyst Dallas: April 30-May 3 Dallas, TX

Catalyst East: October 2-4 Atlanta, GA

New Green Thumb: Messhall

We’re really excited about this latest green thumb. To be honest, it’s got us drooling a bit. Messhall is a fantastic place to get some truly incredible food and drink. They re-interpret, and re-conceptualize regional American dining in a way that’s unlike anything else, using local, sustainable, organic and seasonal ingredients in a way that’s oh-so-tasty. In fact, we’re starting to get hungry. Especially since we just browsed through their food photo gallery. You should really check out the whole gallery, since we’ve selected just a couple to feature here to whet your appetite:

Not only is their menu absolutely delectable, but the space they are in was designed by influential architect Wayne McAllister, credited with creating some of the most popular mid-century drive-ins and car hops. It’s one of architect McAllister’s only original designs still standing. It’s a pretty amazing looking place. Again, they have a beautiful photo gallery you should check out of their space (and you should just go there and experience it all for yourself).

Add to all of that their booming popularity, and a mess of rave reviews from the fine folks at Zagat, the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter, LA Weekly, AskMen.com, and UrbanDaddy, as well as being highlighted on programs like The Today Show, (segment starts at about 2:00 in), and you’ve got the recipe for an incredible experience and a great success. Not to mention, they’ve done a fantastic job with the branding and experience on their website which we like to think is the pièce de résistance of this great place. But you’ll have to decide that for yourself. Be sure to check out their site to learn more, and if you’re in the area, definitely make it a point to visit.

We’re looking for amazing developers.

It’s no secret we’re rebuilding Clover Sites 3 from the ground up, as well as continuing to create some great new things for Clover Donations. With all this going on, what you might not have known, is that we’re also looking to hire a couple incredibly talented people to join our existing team. Rather than just listing all the details here, we’ve created a website to give you the whole story.

Learn more, and apply here: www.cloversites.com/hiring-developers

Clover Donations: How To Use Funds

One of the great features of Clover Donations is the ability to quickly and easily create an unlimited number of funds, and specify which funds are displayed on each form (or giving page) you create. This opens up a world of possibilities for creating unique, impactful, and focused donation forms for specific causes, campaigns, fundraisers, and more.

We’ve run across some creative customers who have used these features to raise money in truly unique ways. We thought we’d share just a few of these great ideas in hopes of inspiring you to be creative with your donation forms. By creating additional forms and using funds strategically, you can maximize the connection with your donors, your mission, and your cause.

And it’s not just about putting multiple unrelated funds on one form, though that is one general approach. There will be times that creating a new form with one singular fund (or group of specific, related funds) is incredibly helpful in accomplishing your fundraising goals. Some of the examples below may help you decide between adding new funds, or creating a new form that uses just one fund to highlight a specific effort. We’ll also be talking a lot more about funds and unique ways you can use them for specific needs in future posts.

1. Create a Form to Highlight a Specific Campaign:
In response to overwhelming interest and support, the non-profit organization For The Silent created a unique site and donation experience for “Run For The Silent” – a campaign which focuses on bringing hope to victims of sex trafficking, through runners who raise awareness. The new site is a place to connect the running community with the needs of exploited children. The donation form they’ve created is not only branded beautifully to match their site and uses recurring giving as an option for donation, but they also use funds as a way for their donors to choose which runner they would like to support as they bring awareness to the issue of sex trafficking.

Take a look: https://forthesilent.cloverdonations.com/run/

2. Create a Form to Support Missionaries:
Master’s Resourcing Commission (MRC) uses their donation forms to help their donors give specifically to missionaries who are part of their program. Through their branded forms, donors can not only select who they want to give to, but, as we mentioned in our last Clover Donations post, they are also using the recurring giving option so people who come to the form to donate, have the option to give on a recurring basis to support their missionary of choice all year long. This is an excellent example of not only how to use funds uniquely, but how to combine that with recurring giving to meet a primary need for missionaries out in the field who rely on regular support to continue their work and meet their most basic needs.

Take a look: https://mrcpartners.cloverdonations.com/donate/

3. Create a General Form to Highlight Various Funds:
As a church or non-profit, having one general form with all funds displayed is a nice way to bring awareness to the multiple campaigns that are running, and funds that need support. In addition to having unique forms with singular funds for specific purposes, it does help sometimes to have one central form that houses every giving option for your supporters. It allows new visitors and longtime donors who use your general giving page or donation form, to be able to see new options available to them and select directly where they would like their money to go. Garden Community Church is just one example of a church that has really maximized the use of funds, creating a robust general form for their congregation.

Take a look: https://gardencommunitychurch.cloverdonations.com/garden-community-church/

If you’d like more help with fund or have any questions, leave a comment, or get in touch with our wonderful customer support team by emailing support@cloverdonations.com or calling us at (805) 527-8900.