Add a Campaign Thermometer (Progress Bar) to Donation Forms

When running a campaign with a target fundraising goal, it’s always a good idea to create a sense of urgency and provide clarity for how close you are to reaching your goal. As you get closer and closer, donors may be more motivated to help fill that gap if they see that you’re only a few percentage points away from reaching your goal! To help provide this sense of urgency, we provide two different thermometer builders that you can use.

Option 1: New Thermometer Builder:

A dynamic thermometer builder that can be used virtually anywhere is available under the Tools -> Thermometer Builder. It looks like this:

When you open the editor, set the configuration appropriately. Options include:

• Data Source – Thermometers can be connected to different sources of data. These include:
  • Donation Form – Only donations made through a specific form will be totaled.
  • Event – Any donations connected to this event, as well as any registration form fees, will be included.
  • Campaign (by Donation) – Any donations entered into the system with a specific campaign label attached will be included. This will include any pledges.
  • Campaign (by Payment) – Any payments entered into the system with a specific campaign label will be included. This has the distinction of NOT including pledges unless their payments have been made.
• Start and End Dates – If not set, there will be no restriction applied. However, if you use the same campaign label from year to year, you’ll want to make sure you specify the start and end dates.
• Styling and labels – These allow you to set your campaign or organization name, logo, colors, and target amount to raise. There are also 3 available design choices.

Once the thermometer is made and saved, you can download JPG, PNG, or SVG images. You can also choose to get an Embed, which will provide an HTML image tag that can be inserted virtually anywhere (including most marketing email editors), or a JS (Javascript) Embed, which will dynamically insert the image into a specific spot on your webpage.

The thermometer is cached for speed, but updates as soon as you enter or receive a new gift. In some cases, browsers may cache the image longer, especially if you are the one looking at the page containing the image on a regular basis. However, a deep refresh should render the most current version, and visitors to your site should see the most recent version on their initial visit.

Option 2: Classic Mode on Donation Forms:

When setting up your form, at the bottom of the Form Labels and Fields tab, you will find this option:

This will allow you to specify a campaign, target fundraising amount, and optional start and end dates. The system will calculate all gifts received for that campaign (whether through a donation form or offline) during the provided date range. (If no date range is set, it’ll total gifts received for the given campaign for all time.)

Next, to add the thermometer to your form, modify the Donation Page Landing text and use the Merge Fields button to add in the thermometer. You can also display the amount raised so far, and the target amount:

Finally, after you save your form messages, this is what you’ll see on your donation form page:

With that, you’re all set and ready to go! The thermometer will automatically update as you add in donations manually for those received offline, and every time a donor gives through the form.