Pledges allow you to collect and track information about the donation amounts that members want to make to your church. This feature lets you create Pledge Campaigns, add Member Pledges and track the progress of paid amounts compared to pledged amounts. You can also add Pledges to Contribution Statements and manage access to the feature.

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Contents

• How Pledges Work
• Create a Pledge Campaign
  • Add a Pledge to a Campaign
  • Edit a Pledge
  • Delete a Pledge 
• Edit a Pledge Campaign
• Delete a Pledge Campaign
• Track Pledge Payments
• View Pledges on Member Profiles
• Print & Email Pledge Statements
  • Print
  • Email
  • Modify the Statement 
• Add Pledges to Contribution Statements
  • Add Pledges to a Statement Template
  • Generate Contribution Statements with Pledges
• Export Pledge Campaigns and Member Pledges
• Import Pledges
• Manage Access to Pledges
• Member View of Pledges
• Allow Members To Submit Pledges Using Forms
  • Create The Form
  • Export Form Data
  • Import Form Data As Pledges

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How Pledges Work

1. You create a Pledge campaign towards specific contribution funds;

2. You add member pledges to the campaign - Members can pledge a one-time or a recurring amount.

3. When pledging members make a contribution - either online or offline, it automatically counts towards their pledge if it is made against a fund that the campaign is configured for.

4. Each pledge campaign and each member come with a visual progress tracker for the amount paid from the amount pledged. This is automatically updated, according to contributions made according to point #3, above.

Create a Pledge Campaign

To create a Pledge Campaign, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Contributions > Pledges;

2. Click Add Campaign;
   

3. Enter campaign information:

   1. Campaign Name,

   2. Start and End Dates: You can add past dates too;

   3. Associated Default Funds: You can add more than one.
       

4. Click Save.
   

5. Your campaign is now added.

Add a Pledge to a Campaign

Member Pledges must be added manually from within ChMeetings. To add a member’s pledge to a campaign, follow these steps: 

1. Go to Contributions > Pledges,

2. Find the Campaign to which you want to add the pledge, and click on its name.
   
    

3. Click Add Pledge. 
   

4. Enter Pledge details: 

   • Select the Person,

   • Toggle on Include Family Members if the pledge is being made on behalf of the entire family;

   • Enter the Amount pledged;

   • Select the Recurrence: Either one-time (Total Amount) or recurring (Weekly, Every 2 Weeks, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly);

   • Enter the Start and End Dates for the member’s pledge;

   • Select the Funds: Any Fund or Specific Funds (you can enter one or several funds in the Funds field);

   • Add any relevant Notes.

   • Click Add to complete adding the member’s pledge.
     

5. The Pledge is added to the Campaign.
    

Edit a Pledge

To edit a Pledge, follow these steps:

1. Go to Contributions > Pledges;

2. Find the Campaign that the pledge is part of;

3. Identify the Pledge that you want to edit;

4. Click More Options,

5. Select Edit to make your changes, then save. 

Delete a Pledge 

To delete a Pledge, follow these steps:

1. Go to Contributions > Pledges;

2. Find the Campaign that the pledge is part of;

3. Identify the Pledge that you want to remove;

4. Click More Options,

5. Select Delete and confirm your choice. Please keep in mind that deleted pledges cannot be restored. 

Note: You can also edit or delete pledges from within member profiles, under Giving > Pledges.

Edit a Pledge Campaign

To edit a Pledge Campaign, follow these steps:

1. Go to Contributions > Pledges;

2. Find the Campaign that you want to edit;

3. Click More Options,

4. Select Edit. 
   

5. In the Edit Campaign window, you can update the Campaign Name, Start and End Date, and Funds. Selecting Update All Pledges will update the Start Date, End Date, or Fund on all pledges included within the campaign.
   
    

Delete a Pledge Campaign

To delete a Pledge Campaign, follow these steps:

1. Go to Contributions > Pledges;

2. Find the Campaign that you want to remove;

3. Click More Options,

4. Select Delete and confirm your choice. Please keep in mind that deleted campaigns cannot be restored.

Track Pledge Payments

To ensure that ChMeetings correctly tracks how much a member has paid out of their pledged amount, please make sure that the following criteria are met:

1. You add member contributions to ChMeetings, either manually, via New Contributions; or members make them via Online Giving;

2. The contribution date is within the date ranges of a Pledge Campaign;

3. The fund configured for the Pledge Campaign is also selected within the Contribution, no matter the method.

If these three criteria are met, progress and amounts are automatically updated within the pledge campaign and member profiles. A progress bar is shown on the Pledge Campaign page for the overall campaign and individual members. This bar shows how much has been paid and is remaining out of the total pledged amount.

View Pledges on Member Profiles

When a member’s pledge is added to ChMeetings, it will reflect in their profile.

To find a member’s pledges: 

1. Access their profile from any section that allows you to do so (For example People, Events. Contributions, etc.);

2. Go to Giving;

3. Select the Pledges tab.

Print & Email Pledge Statements

You can Print Statements and Email Statements using the corresponding options at the top of the Pledges list within a Campaign. You can also Modify the Statement template used by printed or emailed statements.  Here is how each option works: 

Print

To print a pledge statement:

• Go to Contributions > Pledges.
• Open a Pledge Campaign.
• Click Print Statement at the top of the pledges list within the campaign.
• Click the Print Statement button. This generates a .pdf file containing a page for each contributor’s pledge and corresponding contributions; along with any other information included within your template. 

Email

To email a pledge statement: 

• Go to Contributions > Pledges.
• Open a Pledge Campaign.
• Click Email Statement at the top of the pledges list within the campaign.
• Click the Email Statement button. This opens a standard email editor where you can edit the subject and body of your message, add merge fields, and set the sender.
• Upon sending the email, each recipient will receive an attachment containing their personal pledge statement.

Modify the Statement 

You can modify the statement template from under any of the two options: Either Print Statement or Email Statement, within a Pledge Campaign. 

In the Modify Statement window, you can edit the template body, including text, links, tables, images and merge fields. (You can add merge fields from under Add Merge Field.)

Add Pledges to Contribution Statements

Add Pledges to a Statement Template

To generate Contribution Statements with Pledges, you first need to make sure that your Statement Template contains the Pledges merge field. To do so, follow these steps: 

1. Go to Contributions > Statements;

2. Click Modify Statement;

3. Select the template to which you want to add Pledges;

4. Under Add to Body, select the Pledges field;

5. Add the field to the Statement Text;

6. Save the Template.

Generate Contribution Statements with Pledges

To generate Contribution Statements with Pledges, after having added the field to your template, follow these steps:

1. Go to Contributions > All Contributions or to Contributions > Statements.

2. Optionally, select specific contributors, or otherwise generate for all;

3. Set statement dates: Ensure that the dates for which you are generating the statement overlap the dates of the Pledge Campaign;

4. Print or Email the Statement. For members who have active pledges within the selected statement dates, their pledges will be displayed on the statement, similarly to the example below.
    

Export Pledge Campaigns and Member Pledges

1. Export the list of current Pledge Campaigns by going to Contributions > Pledges

2. Export the list of member Pledges within a campaign by going to Contributions > Pledges and selecting the desired campaign.

Import Pledges

If you do not want to enter pledge data manually or have it available from an external system, you can use our Pledge Import tool to add it to ChMeetings faster. 

You can easily run pledge imports by clicking the Import button at the top of your Pledge Campaigns list.

Manage Access to Pledges

Default access to Pledge management is only granted to Admins and Owners. You can grant access to users with custom roles by following the steps below:

1. Go to Users & Roles > Roles & Permissions;

2. Add a new role or select an existing custom role;

3. For the Contributions section, enable at least the View Permission; This enables Pledges permissions.

4. In the Pledges section, select whether you would like users with this role to View, Add, Edit, or Delete Pledges.

5. Save the changes to the role.
   

Users with Member or Group Leader roles cannot be granted access to Pledge management features.

Members can be granted access to viewing their active Pledges. At the moment, Members cannot submit Pledges by themselves; only Owners, Admins, and users with Custom Roles can. The My Pledges permission is enabled for members by default. To disable the permission for members: 

1. Go to Users & Roles > Roles & Permissions,
2. Select Member,
3. Under My Profile, uncheck My Pledges,
4. Save the change.

Member View of Pledges

Members can view their current pledges within their ChMeetings accounts, but they cannot add or edit them.

Pledges are available under My Giving > Pledges.

Each pledge contains the pledging member’s name; campaign name, campaign dates, the amount paid, the amount pledged, and the pledge completion progress bar,

Allow Members To Submit Pledges Using Forms

You can allow your members to submit their pledges using a form, which you’ll then import to your Pledges. Let’s go through the steps needed to achieve this:

Create The Form

First, you will need to go to Forms and create the form that you’ll ask members to submit. The field names in the form must exactly match those in the import template. So, to ensure the data is imported correctly, please add the fields below to your form. These are those required by the Pledge Import template and must be added to the form in the following formats: 

• First Name and Last Name should be profile fields, not general fields. Go to the Profile Fields tab in your form editor, then select Name. This will add both the First Name and Last Name fields to your form. This will automatically detect the member making the submission if they are logged in, and will associate the form to their profile. 
• Start Date and End Date should be date fields. 
• Campaign should be a dropdown field, listing the names of your current pledge campaigns or just those that you want to add to the form. We recommend copy-pasting from ChMeetings if they’re already created, or otherwise making sure that the form field name exactly matches your current pledge campaign names. 
• Fund supports the selection of multiple items, so it must be configured as a checkbox field. For each checkbox item, enter exactly the name of your ChMeetings Funds (from under Contributions > Funds). When filling out the form, members will be able to choose one or more funds that they want to contribute to. If you need new funds created, you can add them to the form, but please add them to ChMeetings manually, before importing, because the import tool does not create them automatically. 
• Pledged represents the amount pledged and should be a number field. 
• Include Family Members should be a dropdown and only provide “Yes” and “No” as options. The field is optional and if left blank, it will assume the “No” selection. If “Yes” is selected, then the pledge will be made on behalf of the entire family that the member submitting the form is part of.
• Notes is optional, too, and should be a multiple line text field. It will allow members to add notes to their pledge. 

Except for Include Family Members and Notes, all the other fields are required for the data to be imported into ChMeetings. Please note that if you add any other fields to your form, they will not be imported into Pledges. 

Here is what your form should look like:

Export Form Data

When you are ready to add form data to Pledges, please go to Forms > Select your Form > Export the Form. This will generate an Excel file containing the fields as column headers, and their corresponding data. 

Import Form Data As Pledges

If your field setup is done as advised above, then your exported file should match the import template and should not require any manual adjustment.  You can import Pledge Form data by going to Settings > Tools > Import Pledges. Follow the steps in our dedicated import guide and at the end, your form data should be added to your Contributions > Pledges section, under the campaigns your members selected.