I would like to have the ability for classmates to donate to a fund that will help less fortunate classmates attend the reunion. Those that have been blessed financially could give 10, 20, 50 dollars to help others.

Is there a way to have an item that the user can fill in the blank for the amount they would like to give? Or do I have to have 4+ items with different amounts listed and they do a quantity? Ah... as I think this out it is probably best to do one item at $5 and they can change the quantity....

However, it would be nice to have one item where they can fill in the blank....

thanx, Jeff

Since you're already only days away from your reunion, you could consider adding a "guest ticket" 'for sale' item of a $35 donation towards this fund to your Reunion Planner page. (The amount in recognition of the 35 years.)

Do you already have a list of class members who may need the financial assistance? Of course you'd want to keep this confidential, but it might be helpful to indicate that there are "X" class members who'd love to be at the reunion but need some financial assistance. Or that you need $X,XXX to help these class members attend.

Perhaps you could send a follow-up email to those who are already registered (and paid) for the 35th asking for their consideration of providing a 'scholarship' to help another classmate make the reunion. The amount could be equal to the cost of your event.

Finally, I imagine you know which of your classmates have the deep pockets and you or your committee treasurer might make a personal phone call to 10 of these members asking for a donation of $100 or more towards this 'scholarship' fund.

Last Spring we sent out just one email to the entire list (about 170 emails at the time) and got 28 donations totaling $3500. We asked specifically for donations of $50 or $100. We published a list of donors (without the amounts) and the donor list is on a page that only class members can view.

We're a year out from our 50th, so we will make more appeals.

Here's an undocumented feature. I didn't document it because we need to work this into the system in a more intelligible way in the Fall when we make some significant Reunion Planner updates after reunion season. But anyway, just create an item for sale and name it "Donate" or whatever you want. And then set the price to "8888". When you do that, the 8888 tells our system to display a fill in form field instead of a fixed value, allowing your Classmates to enter in the desired donation value of their choice. Yes it's a hack but it works like a charm, give it a whirl.

By the way for any other readers here, you can also take donations outside of your Reunion Planner by doing this:

1) Click Edit Site Pages
2) Click the Edit button next to home page
3) Click the Manage Donations link and follow directions on screen

We did this last fall and just added an item (Donation to the Reunion) to our reunion ticket purchase site that cost $5 each and let each person decide the quantity. Almost everyone added at least a quantity of 1 and some added a quantity of 20. We kept our price to attend the reunion very low and made several hundreds of dollars of profit. This we will use to hold mini reunions every 6 months or for seed money for the next big reunion.

We just had a very successful 30th Reunion last weekend, and all of the classmates are incredibly impressed with the website. LOL, they think I'm a genius, even when I tell them it's all the website! The good vibes are flowing now, and I want to take advantage of that while everyone is in the mood to contribute.

My problem: We've already had major issues with PayPal, and don't want to do our donations through them. I would rather do it through CC, which has been so easy throughout our reunion process. I would like to link the donation area to the Home Page, but not take it through PayPal. Do I need to start a new "reunion" just for donations?

Julie

In order to use the ClassCreator payments module, you need to use the Reunion Planner. You can just call the next reunion "DONATIONS" or something like that. You could turn off the Classmate Profile "Attending Reunion" flag and if you want participation, you could change the "Reunion Location" information to display who has donated so far. This might get a bidding competition between classmates.

We had our reunion in May and we are trying to raise funds to help our old school. I was planning on adding a PayPal button to the website but I am hearing too many horror stories about this.
What other methods would you suggest in order to make it easy for classmates to donate.
Can you explain the process through CC ?

If you do not have a reunion planner active for an event, you could choose to Use the reunion planner as a page where people could make a donation. Also, you can create an item for sale and name it "Donate" or whatever you want. And then set the price to "8888". When you do that, the 8888 tells our system to display a fill in form field instead of a fixed value, allowing your Classmates to enter in the desired donation value of their choice.

Any donations using this reunion planner via where they use a credit card will still be subject to the processing fee. But, this will be an easy way for you to collect funds. You could still accept checks if you want people to send you $ directly.

How much is the processing fee ? There was mention of a charge if credit cards were not used but I am not clear about a charge if credit card is used.

Thanks for the information.

The standard processing fee that ClassCreator charges is 4.9% This is detailed in the Reunion Planner.

Thank you

still works

Thanks for the "8888", Brad. It is good to know!

Kyle Erickson wrote:

Kyle,

Where is the "Reunion Location" information? Is this the "Directions" box in the reunion planner?

Jim

What I meant to say was the Content Editor of the Reunion Planner - the "REUNION INFORMATION" window.

All the information that flows from these forems are good. However, I really think CC needs to develope a program for dummies like me. I have stated before that i am a novice. i have been on the site now for 2 months and I want to be able to use it with more confidence. How about a Classcreator for Dummies seminar?

Neil, one thing I did to help me get onboard was to build a website with only a few classmate profiles completed. I then was able to change things, try different things, etc. without upsetting anyone or anything that was in production.

Now that I feel fairly confident I'll proceed with loading our class roster and making the site available to my classmates.

Bob