Creating a campaign

By the end of this guide, you'll have a new campaign created and be ready to configure its donation form and emails. Takes about 1 minute to set up; configuring the form takes longer.

Before you begin

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

You can create a campaign without having Stripe connected, but you won't be able to publish it. If you haven't connected payments yet, start with Connecting Stripe.

Steps

1. Click New Campaign

Open the Campaigns section in the left navigation and click New Campaign in the top right of the campaigns list.

2. Select a campaign type

Choose between two campaign types:

• Donation Page (recommended) — a standalone, full-page donation form. The highest-converting option and the right choice for most campaigns.
• Donation Popup — an embeddable popup form for cases where donors need to stay on your existing website.

For a deeper comparison, see Donation page setup. The campaign type can't be changed after creation — to switch surfaces, create a new campaign.

Click Continue.

3. Select a starting point

Most campaigns are variations of existing ones — the same form configuration, photo, and emails with different copy for a different appeal or audience. GiveForms gives you two options:

• Duplicate an existing campaign — copies the configuration, content, and styling from a campaign you've already built. Pick the campaign you want to start from in the dropdown. This is the common path.
• Start from Scratch — begins with a blank donation form. Use this for your first campaign, or when you want a clean slate.

If you're duplicating, every setting on the original campaign carries over: the header, photo, donation amounts, payment methods, dedications, designations, exit popup, receipt page, emails. The new campaign is independent of the original — changes to one don't affect the other.

4. Name the campaign

Enter a name for internal reference. Donors never see this name — they see whatever's in the form's header. Pick something that helps you and your team identify the campaign in lists and reports. See What is a campaign? for more on naming.

5. Click Create Campaign

The campaign is created as a draft and you land on the campaign overview.

What you'll see next

After creation, the campaign overview shows two cards:

• Donation Page (or Donation Popup, depending on the type you chose) — click to open the form editor and configure the donation experience.
• Emails & Receipt — click to customize the emails sent to donors after one-time and recurring donations. Emails include the PDF receipt as an attachment.

The campaign sits in Draft state until you publish the donation form. Donors can't access it until then.

What to do next

Configure the donation form. The donation page sets up over a handful of focused panels: header, photo, donation amounts, payment methods, personal information, and more. Start with Donation page setup, which walks through the editor's structure and links out to each configuration topic.

Before publishing, run an end-to-end test transaction in preview mode — see Test transactions.