Running a giving campaign

A campaign is a time-boxed drive layered on a fund you already have. The fund is the permanent bucket the money lives in; the campaign is the push — "can we raise $15,000 for the roof by October 31?" When the drive ends, the fund carries on exactly as before.

That's the whole idea: a drive changes how you ask, never how you account. Gifts still land in the fund's ledger, so your statements, balances, and board reports are untouched.

You'll find campaigns on the Giving page. If you've never run one, look for Start a campaign at the bottom of your funds; once you have a drive, a Campaigns section appears above the funds with a New campaign button.

Starting a campaign

Click Start a campaign. You'll choose:

• The fund it's for — the drive designates an existing fund, and every gift to that fund during the drive counts toward it. Two rules apply, and Psalmly shows both right in the list rather than hiding them: your general "Tithes & offerings" fund can't host a drive (it's perpetual, not a push), and a fund can only host one campaign at a time — a fund already running one appears greyed out, naming the drive that's blocking it.
• A headline — the short, human line your church will see, like "A new roof before winter."
• A goal — the dollar target that fills the thermometer.
• An end date — the last day the drive runs. It starts the day you create it.
• A story (optional) — a few sentences on why it matters.
• A photo (optional) — a picture makes a drive far more compelling. Without one, Psalmly uses a designed gradient that looks good on its own. Choose or make a graphic under the photo field opens your church's graphics library to pick one (free), or designs a new one from the headline and story you've written. The drive launches with it either way. See Adding a graphic to an event, announcement, or campaign.

Save it and the drive is live immediately.

What the thermometer actually counts

This is the part worth reading twice, because it surprises people in the best way.

A drive's total is everything given to its fund between its start and end dates. Psalmly doesn't count "gifts that came through the campaign button" — it counts the fund. Which means:

• Cash and checks count automatically. Anything you record with Record offering against that fund lands in the drive's total, exactly like an online gift.
• A regular online gift to that fund counts, even if the giver never saw the drive.
• A visitor's gift from your public page counts, with no account needed.

So the number on the thermometer is the number your church actually took in for that purpose. It reconciles to your books because it is your books.

The flip side, and the reason to be careful with wording: the list of people who funded a drive legitimately includes members who never pressed a campaign button — someone who simply gives to the Building Fund every month is part of that total. When you thank people, thank the whole church rather than a filtered list. See When a campaign finishes.

Where the drive shows up

Once it's running, the drive appears:

• On your admin Giving page, with its thermometer and giver count.
• In the member app, on the church's Giving tab — on web and on mobile.
• On your public page, so visitors see it too.
• At your shareable giving link (yourchurch.psalmly.app/give) — the one to put on a bulletin, a QR code, or a Facebook post. When someone shares that link, the preview image shows the live thermometer.

One prerequisite for the last three: your church has to have online giving switched on. You can start a drive before you finish connecting Stripe — cash and checks you record still count toward it on your admin page — but until Stripe is live, members and visitors won't see the drive at all.

One thing to watch: a drive can only be seen if its fund can be seen. If you hide or archive the fund a drive is running on, the drive disappears from members and visitors too. Psalmly warns you when that happens — restore or unhide the fund and the drive picks right back up.

Running more than one

You can run several drives at once, as long as each is on a different fund. Your church sees the most urgent one featured, with the others listed below it as Other current drives, so a second drive never buries the first. The shareable giving link is your church's, not each drive's — yourchurch.psalmly.app/give shows every current drive, and its social preview features the most urgent one.

Editing, ending early, and what happens after

Open any campaign to edit its headline, story, goal, end date, or photo while it runs.

A campaign's page also has a Make a graphic button (on paid plans) — for a poster asking your church to give, and again at the end for the "we did it, thank you" post. It works on a finished drive too. See Making a graphic.

End early closes a drive before its planned end date — useful when you've hit the goal or the need has changed. It stamps today as the end date, so the drive stays open through the end of today (a gift given this afternoon still counts) and then moves to Completed. Both dates stay visible afterward so the change never looks like a glitch.

If any members set up a recurring gift to the drive, it stops on its own on the end date that was in place when they set it up — they don't have to remember to cancel anything. One thing to know: ending a drive early, or changing its end date afterward, doesn't move those gifts. They keep running to the date their giver was promised, and Psalmly tells you how many there are before you confirm. To stop one sooner, cancel that giver's recurring gift in Stripe.

A finished drive stays visible to your church for about two weeks — a quiet "here's how it went" — and then tucks itself away under past campaigns, where you can always find it.

Falling short of a goal is not a failure, and Psalmly never presents it as one. A drive that raised $12,400 of $15,000 raised $12,400 your church didn't have before.