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Using Giving Designations

Menu path: Giving > Giving Settings > Designations

Giving Designations let you create donor-friendly labels for where a gift is going, while still connecting that gift to the correct fund and general ledger accounts on the back-end.

In simple terms:

Donors see: “Missions,” “Youth Camp,” “Bible Study Books,” “Building Fund”
Connection Card Pro records: the proper fund, income account, register, fees account, and optional tag/linking rules

Designations help you make giving clearer for donors without giving them accounting language.

What a Designation is

A Designation is the donor-facing purpose or destination of a gift.

Examples

Tithe
Missions
Youth Camp
Bible Study Books
Student Guatemala Trip
Building Fund

A designation can be used in different ways

Selectable by donors on a giving page
Hidden from general donor selection, but still used by one or more Unique Giving Links
Internal only, when used for accounting structure or preset giving flows

A designation does not require its own Unique Giving Link.

Why use Designations?

Designations help you:

Give donors a simple, meaningful label for their gift
Connect that label to the correct Fund
Connect that gift to the correct Income Account
Automatically record any payment processing fees to the right Expense Account
Optionally apply a linked tag or connect the gift to a Department, Fundraiser, Project, or Purpose

Creating a Designation

Go to Giving > Giving Settings > Designations
Click Create New Designation
Fill out the fields

Main fields

Label

This is what donors will see as the designation or purpose of their gift.

Examples: Missions, Youth Camp, Ministry Fund

Description

Optional donor-facing description explaining what the designation supports.

Example: “The Ministry Fund supports all operational expenses for our main campus.”

Important checkboxes

Donors can select this designation

When checked, this designation can appear as an option for donors to choose when using a giving page that allows donor designation selection.

When unchecked:

donors cannot choose it from a general designation list,
but it can still be used by a Unique Giving Link, depending on that link’s settings,
and it may still be visible to the donor if that link displays the designation.

So unchecked does not always mean fully hidden.

Restricted Funds

When checked:

gifts to this designation are treated internally as donor-restricted, and
the donor will also see wording that makes it clear their donation is being restricted toward a specific cause.

Use this when the designation represents a truly restricted purpose.

Accounting fields

Register

Choose the register that should receive the funds.

However, many organizations have Accounts Receivable for Donations / Payments enabled in Giving Setup.

When that is enabled:

donations are first recorded in the selected A/R account,
then later transferred to the register when the payout occurs,
so the selected register here may be overridden by that process.

Even so, you should still choose the correct register here, because that is where funds will ultimately be transferred once a payout occurs.

Fund

Choose the fund the donation should be recorded to.

Income Account

This is the income account where gifts using this designation will be recorded.

Expense Account

This is required because it is used to record payment processing fees associated with gifts through this designation.

This is one of the most common points of confusion.

In most cases:

your Income Account may vary by designation,
but your Expense Account is often the same across many designations, such as:
- Bank Fees
- Processing Fees
- Merchant Fees

Link to

The Link to field lets you connect a designation to a:

Department
Fundraiser
Project
Purpose

This does two things:

It automatically adds the related tag to donations using this designation.
It helps control where this designation appears when a Unique Giving Link allows donors to choose a designation.

For example:

a designation linked to a Fundraiser will only appear on links using Fundraiser Designations
a designation linked to a Project will only appear on links using Project Designations
designations not linked to one of those special categories are considered Custom Designations

These tags come from:
Accounting > Financial Settings > Tags

How Designations work with Unique Giving Links

A designation can be used by one, many, or no Unique Giving Links.

That means you can:

create one designation like Missions
use it on your general giving page
and also use it as the default designation on multiple unique campaign links

This is helpful when several different campaigns should all feed the same designation.

Common examples

Example 1: General Missions Fund

You create a designation called Missions.

Donors can select it
Restricted Funds is checked
Fund = Missions Fund
Income Account = Missions Income
Expense Account = Bank Fees

Now donors can clearly choose “Missions” when giving online, and the gift is recorded correctly on the back-end.

Example 2: Internal designation for a campaign link

You create a designation called Bible Study Books.

Donors can select it = unchecked
It is only used on a specific Unique Giving Link for a seasonal campaign
That link displays the designation to the donor

This keeps it off your general giving list while still making it work beautifully for that one campaign.

Best practices for Designations

Use donor-friendly names, not accounting terms
- Better: Youth Camp
- Less helpful: Fund 3200 / Program Expense Offset
Keep your descriptions short and clear
Use Restricted Funds only when the gift is truly restricted
Reuse designations when multiple giving links should feed the same purpose
Use Link to thoughtfully so reporting and tagging stay clean

Related guide

Once your designations are set up, the next step is often creating a Unique Giving Link that uses one of them.

See: Using Unique Giving Links

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