How to create, track, and manage donor pledges

Pledges make it easy to keep track of donations or registrations that have been promised but not yet received.

A pledge is not an actual payment. Instead, it's a record you create when a donor commits to making a donation or purchasing tickets at a later date.

This allows you to track expected contributions while awaiting payment. Pledges can be associated with a donation campaign or event and are included in fundraising totals, campaign thermometers, and public donor lists just like completed payments.

How pledges work

When you create a pledge:

• The pledge appears in Payments with a status of Due.

• The pledged amount is immediately included in your campaign or event totals. For events, any pledged ticket reservations are also reflected in your registration totals.

• You can set a due date and schedule an email reminder to yourself, making it easy to follow up with the donor if payment has not been received.

• You can send the donor a payment link with their contact information and pledge amount pre-filled, allowing them to complete the payment online.

• Alternatively, you can mark the pledge as paid when you receive an offline payment, such as cash, check, or another payment method.

Create a pledge

1. In your Zeffy dashboard, go to Payments

2. Click Add payment in the top-right corner and select Add a pledge

3. Choose the Campaign the pledge is associated with

4. Enter the pledge amount (for donation campaigns) or select the ticket(s) being pledged (for ticketed campaigns)

5. Set a Due date

6. (Optional) Check Send me an email reminder if you'd like to receive a reminder when the pledge is due

7. Associate the pledge with a contact. You can either:

   • Search for and select an existing contact already in your account

   • Or create a new contact manually if one does not yet exist. If creating a new contact, you’ll be asked to enter the donor’s name and email address.

   

8. Customize the remaining pledge details. Depending on your needs, you can:

   • Mark the pledge as a company donation and enter the company name

   • Add internal notes

   • Complete any custom questions associated with the campaign or event

9. Click Save or Save & add another.

Where pledges appear

After saving, the pledge will appear in Payments with:

• Status: Due

• Payment method: Pledge

This indicates the donation has been promised but has not yet been received.

Where pledges appear

After saving, the pledge appears in the Payments list as a new row with:

• Status: Due - the donor has not yet paid.

• Payment method: Pledge.

Collect a pledge / Mark it as paid

There are two ways to complete a pledge:

1. Send the donor a payment link and collect the donation online.

2. Manually mark the pledge as paid if the payment was received outside of Zeffy.

1

Option 1: Send a payment link

• Head to Payments and click on the pledge.

  • Be careful not to click on the donor's name, as that will take you to their contact profile. Instead, click anywhere else on the pledge row to open the pledge details in the panel on the right-hand side.

• On the pledge details page, click Copy payment link.

• Send the link to the donor (The link opens the campaign form with the donor's information and pledge amount already filled in.)

• When a donor completes the payment, the pledge will be converted into a completed payment with:

  • Status: Succeeded

  • Payment method: Card, ApplePayorGooglePay or ACH (depending on the payment method used)

Important: A pledge will only be automatically completed if the donor uses the payment link associated with that pledge.

If the donor pays through a different donation form or event link, Zeffy will create a separate payment and the pledge will remain in Due status. If this happens, simply cancel the original pledge to remove the outstanding balance. Instructions for cancelling a pledge can be found further below in this guide.

• If the pledge link is shared with someone after the pledge has already been marked as paid, the page will show This payment has already been completed.

2

Option 2: Manually mark a pledge as paid offline

• Head to Payments and click on the pledge.

  • Be careful not to click on the donor's name, as that will take you to their contact profile. Instead, click anywhere else on the pledge row to open the pledge details in the panel on the right-hand side.

• Click Mark as complete.

• Select the payment method: Cash / Check / Other

• (Optional) Update the payment date if needed.

• Click Confirm.

The pledge will be converted into a completed payment with:

• Status: Succeeded

• Payment method: Cash, Check, or Other

Cancel or delete a pledge

You can remove a pledge at any point before or after it is marked as paid.

Cancel an unpaid pledge

1. Head to Payments and click on the pledge.

   1. Be careful not to click on the donor's name, as that will take you to their contact profile. Instead, click anywhere else on the pledge row to open the pledge details in the panel on the right-hand side.

2. Click Actions, then Cancel pledge.

3. Confirm in the Cancel pledge modal. This removes the pledge from the associated campaign and deletes the record.

Delete a completed pledge

Once a pledge has been marked as paid, the available actions depend on how the payment was completed:

If the pledge was paid online, the payment behaves like any other online donation in Zeffy. You can refund the payment by opening it in Payments, clicking Actions, and selecting Refund. More information on how to refund a payment can be found here : Managing Refunds in Zeffy

If the pledge was marked as paid manually, the payment becomes a manual payment entry which can be deleted the same way you would delete any other manual payment. For this:

1. Head to Payments and click on the payment.

   1. Be careful not to click on the donor's name, as that will take you to their contact profile. Instead, click anywhere else on the pledge row to open the pledge details in the panel on the right-hand side.

2. Click Actions > Delete.

Notes on pledge records

Once a pledge is marked as paid, there is no remaining record that it was originally a pledge. If you need to track that history, add a note to the transaction before completing it. See How can I add a note to a transaction?

For more on recording offline payments, see Manual payment or registration entries to log cash, check or other offline payments. For deleting manual entries, see Delete a manually entered payment.