Archiving a campaign

By the end of this guide, you'll have archived a campaign and understand what happens to its donors, recurring plans, and donation page URL. Archiving is reversible — if you change your mind, you can restore the campaign later.

Before you begin

You'll need an Admin role. Viewers can't archive campaigns.

What archiving does

Archiving moves a campaign out of your active campaigns list. The donation form stops accepting new donations and the campaign no longer appears in the default Campaigns view. The campaign and its data aren't deleted — archived campaigns live under View Archived Campaigns and can be restored at any time.

Steps

1. Open the Campaigns section in the left navigation.
2. Find the campaign you want to archive in the list.
3. Click the overflow menu (the ... button) for that campaign.
4. Click Archive.
5. Confirm in the modal that appears.

If the campaign you're archiving is the current default, GiveForms will prompt you to choose a different default first. Every organization has exactly one default campaign at all times — see What is a campaign? for more on the default campaign mechanism.

What stays the same after archiving

Archiving doesn't disrupt anything that was already in motion:

• Existing recurring plans keep processing. Monthly and yearly recurring donations associated with the archived campaign continue charging on their normal schedule. Donors don't experience any interruption.
• Donation history stays in the Activity Dashboard. Past donations from the archived campaign remain visible and filterable, so historical reporting works the same. The campaign still appears as a filter option.
• Transactional emails continue to send. Receipt resends, recurring donation notifications, and other emails tied to the archived campaign go out as scheduled.

What changes after archiving

• The donation form stops accepting new donations. The campaign is no longer accessible for new visitors trying to donate.
• The donation page URL redirects to the default campaign. Visitors who land on the old URL — from year-end emails, social posts, QR codes, paid ads — see the default campaign's donation page instead of a 404. This is why setting a sensible default campaign matters: it becomes the catch-all for archived campaign traffic.
• The campaign leaves the active campaigns list. Find it under View Archived Campaigns in the top right of the Campaigns view.

Restoring an archived campaign

If you need to bring an archived campaign back:

1. Open the Campaigns section.
2. Click View Archived Campaigns in the top right.
3. Find the campaign and use its overflow menu to restore it.

Restored campaigns return to the active campaigns list in their previous state. Donation page URLs become live again at their original slugs.

Before you archive a heavily-trafficked campaign

Two things worth thinking about for any campaign with significant external traffic:

• Make sure the default campaign is the right landing spot. After archiving, visitors hitting the old URL will be redirected to the default. If the default isn't appropriate — say, it's another niche campaign rather than a general-fund or always-on page — update the default first.
• Consider what external materials reference the URL. Year-end emails, paid ads, QR codes on physical materials, and links in third-party sites all become redirects to the default. If the archived campaign was the centerpiece of a recent push, expect those redirected visitors for weeks or months after archiving.