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Fundraising, Budgets, and Money Management Guide

A comprehensive guide to managing your trip's finances.

1. Fundraising Basics

1.1. Overview

 The Fundraising Tab is a great place to start managing your team's financial responsibilities.

 

The first thing you should do is set the amount your team members need to raise by clicking Edit Goal per Person under the Related Options on the right side of the screen. We'll cover how to set team member specific fundraising exceptions later in this guide.

Let's take a quick look at some of the features of the Fundraising Tab:

  1. This is the sum of all contributions assigned to a team but not to any specific team member. Click the amount to see a detailed list of these contributions.
  2. This is a sum of the contributions raised by this team member
  3. This is the amount this specific team member needs to raise.
  4. Click the pencil icon to edit the amount this team member needs to raise
  5. Click the Options menu to view this team member's contributions or send them an email.

Icon Legend

= A Fundraising Exception has been configured for this team member

= A member budget has been configured for this team member

= A Public Profile has been configured by this team member

= This is a non-traveling team member. Non-traveling team members are non fundraising team members. 

1.2. Tracking Contributions

The most common way to track team member fundraising progress is to enter it into ManagedMissions.com manually. To do this go to the Fundraising Tab and select Add Contributions.

 

The Add Contributions screen was designed to allow team leaders to quickly add contributions without needing to use their mouse. Use the TAB and ENTER keys on your keyboard to quickly navigate through the data entry process.

Because many organizations will also be processing checks and cash through a secondary contribution management system we hide some of the detailed data fields by default.

Extended Details Hidden
We recommend keeping track of Donor Name and Reference Number in case you need to reference a specific donation in the future. (Example: A check bounces and you need to remove that contribution from ManagedMissions.com)

 

Extended Detailed Shown
Recommended if you are not also processing contributions through a secondary donor management system.

 

Anonymous Contributions

If a contribution is flagged as Anonymous the donor name will be hidden from the team member when they view their contributions within ManagedMissions.com. Team administrators and team leaders will always be able to see the actual donor name on the Fundraising tab.

 

The Tax Deductible Checkbox

By default, all contributions are flagged as 'Tax Deductible' inside ManagedMissions.com. Unchecking this box on a given contribution record will not change how the contribution is displayed within a the team member's profile. This check box was added at the request of some churches and is only used for record keeping purposes. This field does show up on all contribution exports generated by ManagedMissions.com

1.3. Per Person Goals

The 'Goal Per Person' is the base fundraising amount that each team member needs to raise for your trip. This is the amount each team member will have to fundraise unless a 'fundraising exception' or 'member budget' item is set on their person profile.

The easiest place to edit this amount is on the Fundraising Tab under Related Options: Edit Per Person Goal

You will be presented with a dialogue that will tell you your current trip budget as well as an automatically calculated suggested cost per person. In the image below we can see that ManagedMissions has suggested a per person cost of $2,854 per person which is higher than the current Per Person Goal setting of $2,679. ManagedMissions made this determination by:

  • Taking the total budget and dividing that by 11 traveling team members
  • Factoring in any team member Fundraising Exceptions that have be configured
  • Factoring in any Member Budgets that have been configured

Here you can manually set the Goal Per Person or use the Synchronize button to set the Goal Per Person equal to the ManagedMissions suggested amount.

1.4. Fundraising Exceptions

The Fundraising Exception allows you to set a different fundraising goal on a team member by member basis. It should only be used for exceptions. To set a general fundraising amount for the team you should use the Per Person Goal feature.

The Fundraising Exception can be set in two places.

1. Team Members Tab > Enter a Fundraising Exception check box

 

2. Fundraising Tab > click the pencil icon next to a team member's fundraising amount. This method is particularly helpful as it gives you a complete snapshot of the team member's financial goal. This is particularly helpful in complex situations where a team member may have a Fundraising Exception and a Member Budget configured.

1.5. Member Budgets

Team Member budgets allow you to make positive or negative financial adjustments to a team members fundraising amount. This can be a little complicated so let's walk through an example together:

Team Members Tab > select a team member > select the Member Budget tab.

Assumptions:

  • The Argentina Trip costs $1,925.00 with the assumption that each team member is leaving from Los Angeles and has not previously been to Argentina.
  • Brad Hockersmith went on this trip last year
  • Brad Hockersmith will be originating from PHX and meeting the team at LAX International Airport.
  • Argentina charges all visitors a $160 entry visa which is good for 10 years.

Desired Outcome:

  • Increase Brad's fundraising goal to account for the additional cost to fly him round trip from PHX -> LAX
  • Decrease Brad's fundraising goal by $160 since he does not need to purchase the entry visa a second time.

Result: Brad's adjusted fundraising goal is $2,265.00

 

As seen on the Fundraising Tab:

 

As seen on the Budget Tab:

It is important to recognize that Member Budget items do have an impact on your total trip budget. While they will not impact the fundraising amounts of other team members they do impact your total trip cost. 

2. Managing Fundraising Deadlines

2.1. Managing fundraising Deadlines

Using a Per Person Goal you can set the total amount team members need to fundraise prior to departure. Here we want to discuss how to create incremental financial goals (aka fundraising deadlines) for your team as they gear up to go on a trip.

Click on the Tasks & Goals tab to see a list of all upcoming and past Tasks & Goals.

 

In the example above you can see that we've configured multiple fundraising deadlines over several months. Some important notes above financial deadlines:

  • Each deadline should be for the total amount the team member should have raised by this deadline. For example, if you instructed your team to turn in $500 each month you would configure your 1st month's goal for $500, your 2nd month's goal for $500, and your 3rd month's goal for $1,500.
  • Deadlines can be configured for a fixed dollar amount or a percentage of the overall goal. In the example above our 1st four goals are dollar amounts and our final deadline is for 100% of the team members financial goal.

If you click on a particular goal you can view which team members have met this goal. These values are automatically calculated by the system.

 

2.2. Reminder Emails (Fundraising Deadlines)

Reminder Emails are a powerful tool inside ManagedMissions.com. They allow you to notify just the team members who haven't met a particular fundraising deadline without bothering team members who have. We can send this email at any time. Often I'll send a gentle reminder email a few days before a deadline and then send a more stern follow-up email after the deadline has passed to those who failed to meet their financial obligation.

To send an email go to the Tasks & Goals tab and click the task you wish to send an email for.

In this example we can see that only two team members have failed to meet this deadline.

After clicking Send Reminder Email you'll have the option to email the entire team or just those team members who have not met this financial deadline.

 

3. Online Donations

3.1. Getting Started

Before You Start

In order to set up Public Profiles and Online Donations in Managed Missions, you must be an administrator on your account and have Premium Features enabled on your account. Premium Features cost an additional $25/month.

To enable Premium Features, log in to app.managedmissions.com, go to Account Admin > My Account Tab. Click Edit current plan, and check the box labeled Enable Premium Features. Click Change Current Plan to finalize the change (If you were previously on a free plan, you will be prompted to set up payment.)

3.2. Public Profiles Account Config

 

The first think you need to do is enable public profiles: Account Admin > Public Pages :

Default Trips to Require Admin Approval to Publish Profiles: Team members set up their own public profiles and are able to set some of the information that is displayed on their profile. As an Account Admin, you may want to review and approve your team members' changes before they are published. When Public Profiles are enabled, you have a new option when creating and editing trips which allows you to require administrator approval to publish Public Profiles. Here in the Public Profiles Configuration, you can set the default for that setting. If "Default Trips to Require Admin Approval to Publish Profiles" is checked, then all new trips will have their "Require Admin Approval to Publish Pages For This Trip" box checked by default.

Public Profile Review Email Address: Whenever a trip is set to "Require Admin Approval to Publish Pages For This Trip" and a team member on that trip submits their Public Profile for approval, an email will be sent to the email address specified here. Use this email address to inform the administrator responsible for approving Public Profiles when there is a new profile to review.

On the "Customize" page:
Public Profile Theme: This is where you can customize the look of your public profile pages. You can choose to use either the provided Dark Theme or Light Theme or a custom theme of your own. Custom Themes are uploaded as CSS files. An example CSS file can be downloaded as a starting point. Using a custom theme is only recommended if you have a web designer who can design your custom theme.

Public Profile Logo: This is where you can upload your organization's logo to appear at the top of every public page. Consider whether your logo looks best on a dark background or a light background when choosing your theme. If you do not upload a logo, the Managed Missions logo will be used instead. The Managed Missions logo looks best with our default Dark Theme.

"About Our Ministry" Title: On each public profile there is a section to describe your organization. This setting controls the heading of that section.

"About Our Ministry" Text: This is where you can put information describing your organization, which will appear on every public profile.
Website Links: At the bottom of each public profile you can include a series of links to external websites. You may want to use this to link to your organization's website or giving policies. You can set the title above the links, as well as the text and URL for each link. If you leave all these fields blank, no links section will appear.

When you've got your settings all in place, you can see what they will look like in action by clicking "Save and Preview". You can always come back later and make changes to your Public Profiles Configuration.

3.3. Online Donations Setup

Public Profiles and Online Donations in Managed Missions

Before You Start

In order to set up Public Profiles and Online Donations in Managed Missions, you must be an administrator on your account and have Premium Features enabled on your account. Premium Features cost an additional $25/month.

To enable Premium Features, log in to app.managedmissions.com, go to Account Admin → My Account. Click "Edit current plan", and check the box labeled "Enable Premium Features". Click "Change Current Plan" to finalize the change (If you were previously on a free plan, you will be prompted to set up payment.)

Public Profiles

Public Profiles are personalized pages that can be set up by team members to share information with friends and family about their trip. If you also set up Online Donations, each public profile will also have a button that says "Donate". This button will allow friends and family of your team members to give directly to that team member's trip.

Setting up Public Profiles is easy. To enable Public Profiles, go to Account Admin → Public Pages and check the box labeled "Enable Individual Public Profiles". You have several options for customizing the functionality and appearance of your public profiles:

On the "Configuration" page:

Default Trips to Require Admin Approval to Publish Profiles: Team members set up their own public profiles and are able to set some of the information that is displayed on their profile. As an Account Admin, you may want to review and approve your team members' changes before they are published. When Public Profiles are enabled, you have a new option when creating and editing trips which allows you to require administrator approval to publish Public Profiles. Here in the Public Profiles Configuration, you can set the default for that setting. If "Default Trips to Require Admin Approval to Publish Profiles" is checked, then all new trips will have their "Require Admin Approval to Publish Pages For This Trip" box checked by default.

Public Profile Review Email Address: Whenever a trip is set to "Require Admin Approval to Publish Pages For This Trip" and a team member on that trip submits their Public Profile for approval, an email will be sent to the email address specified here. Use this email address to inform the administrator responsible for approving Public Profiles when there is a new profile to review.

On the "Customize" page:

Public Profile Theme: This is where you can customize the look of your public profile pages. You can choose to use either the provided Dark Theme or Light Theme or a custom theme of your own. Custom Themes are uploaded as CSS files. An example CSS file can be downloaded as a starting point. Using a custom theme is only recommended if you have a web designer who can design your custom theme.

Public Profile Logo: This is where you can upload your organization's logo to appear at the top of every public page. Consider whether your logo looks best on a dark background or a light background when choosing your theme. If you do not upload a logo, the Managed Missions logo will be used instead. The Managed Missions logo looks best with our default Dark Theme.

"About Our Ministry" Title: On each public profile there is a section to describe your organization. This setting controls the heading of that section.

"About Our Ministry" Text: This is where you can put information describing your organization, which will appear on every public profile.

Website Links: At the bottom of each public profile you can include a series of links to external websites. You may want to use this to link to your organization's website or giving policies. You can set the title above the links, as well as the text and URL for each link. If you leave all these fields blank, no links section will appear.

When you've got your settings all in place, you can see what they will look like in action by clicking "Save and Preview". You can always come back later and make changes to your Public Profiles Configuration.

Online Donations

Once you have Public Profiles set up, you are ready to set up Online Donations.

Online Donations allow your team members' friends and family to give directly to a team member's trip. Donations made through Managed Missions are sent directly to your organization's payment processor account and are recorded automatically in Managed Missions as a contribution to the appropriate team member and mission trip.

To set up Online Donations, go to Account Admin → Online Donations and check the box labeled "Enable Online Donations". You now have a few options to set.

Mark online donations as tax deductible: Set whether the new contributions created when someone gives are marked as "Tax Deductible" inside Managed Missions. Managed Missions does not handle Tax Deductible contributions differently, this is only for your records.

Payment Processor: This is the most important setting for getting Online Donations set up. Once a payment processor is selected there will be further set up to do. Managed Missions currently supports Stripe, Giiive.com, and Vanco Services as payment processors. You can also set up your public pages to redirect users to your own giving pages. Each payment processor will be addressed individually.

Text Above/Below Donation Form: You can set custom text to appear above and below the donation form. You can use this space for any information or disclaimers you want to communicate to donors giving to your trips.

Thank you email text: This is where you can set the text of the email that is sent to donors after they give. Below the text area is a list of codes you can insert into the email text to include values specific to that donation.

3.4. Payment Processors

Each payment processor that Managed Missions supports has unique considerations and set up. The sections below will help you get set up with your chosen payment processor.

Stripe (https://stripe.com)

Of all the payment processor options, Stripe is usually the fastest and easiest to set up and start using. Stripe also has very nice reporting tools and a painless integration with Managed Missions. In fact,
Stripe is the payment processor that we use at Managed Missions to process credit card payments. If you don't have a payment processor already and are looking for the quickest and simplest set up we recommend looking into whether Stripe is right for you.

Integrating Stripe with Managed Missions is very simple. Once you select "Stripe" from the payment processor dropdown, a new link will appear which says "Save settings and set up Stripe Connect". Just click the link and you'll be walked through the process of giving Managed Missions access to accept payments to your Stripe account on your behalf. When using Stripe, Managed Missions never knows your Stripe account login information, and you can revoke the access you grant to Managed Missions at any time from your Stripe Dashboard.

If you don't already have a Stripe account, the Stripe Connect process will walk you through the account set up process as well. If you do have a Stripe account, then you only need to log in to it and grant permission to Managed Missions to accept payments on your behalf.

Once the Stripe Connect process is completed, you're ready to go. You can begin accepting online donations immediately.


Vanco (http://vancopayments.com)

Vanco is a payment processor that specifically focuses on churches and non-profit organizations. Once you've set up your account with Vanco, they will be able to supply you with the API credentials that you will need to integrate with Managed Missions. Once you have the credentials from Vanco, you can log in to Managed Missions, go to Account Admin → Online Donations, and select Vanco and enter your API credentials.

 

Giiive (https://giiive.com)

Giiive is an option that completely replaces the Managed Missions public pages. The best way to learn more about using Giiive is through their website or contacting them directly. If you're interested in using Giiive with Managed Missions the Giiive and Managed Missions teams can work together to get you set up.

 

What about PayPal?

Managed Mission used to have a PayPal integration based on their Payflow gateway technology. Unfortunately we are no longer able to support that solution for new implementations, due changes made by PayPal. Currently PayPal does not offer any other way to provide a secure payment page without sending users through the PayPal website, which is a much worse experience than Managed Missions offers with our other payment processor options. For the time being, PayPal is unavailable as an option, but we hope to find a suitable PayPal solution in the future.

4. Budgets & Expenses

4.1. Budgets

The Budget tab is a great way to track all of your anticipated expenses for your mission trip. When used properly ManagedMissions.com will help you budget the proper trip cost for each team member and ensure you don't end up with a budget shortage.

 

Adding/Editing a Budget Item (1)

Click Add a Budget Item or click the pencil icon to edit an existing budget row. Click the trashcan icon to delete a row. If you specify a quantity and cost per unit ManagedMissions will calculate the total expense for you.

We highly recommend using the tie quantity to team size check box when possible. This is a really useful feature as it will help keep your budget in sync as you add/remove team members.

  • If a team member is added or removed from the trip the budget will automatically be recalculated.
  • If a team member is flagged as a 'non-traveling' team member they will not be considered when calculating the total budget.

 

 

Total Budget (2)

The Total Budget value includes all budget items listed on on this page including the Member Budget items listed at the bottom.  

 

Number of Team Members (3)

The Number of Team Members value is automatically calculated and includes traveling team members only.

 

Goal Per Person (4)

The Goal Per Person value is the fundraising amount you have configured for your team.  This value will not change automatically but can be changed by clicking the edit link.

 

Goal Per Person Warning Message (5)

If the manually configured Goal Per Person does not match what ManagedMissions calculates as the accurate Goal Per Person then a warning message will be displayed:

Your current Goal Per Person is not in sync with your team budget ($2,853.89 per person).

This warning message is a valuable safety net on a trip with fluctuating costs and team members. It is very common for the trip costs to go up and down as the itinerary is set and/or non-paying pastors are added to the trip.

 

Member Budget Items (6)

The sum of Member Budget items are calculated and displayed at the bottom of the budget grid. These line items are editable on the applicable team member profiles. 

4.2. Expenses

Keep track of the money you spend on trip expenses on the Expenses tab. This is a great place to keep track of airfare deposits and other trip expenses.

 

Budget vs. Expenses

Some users have expressed confusion regarding budgets and expenses. Think of a budget as what you anticipate spending on a trip and your expenses as what you actually spend.

 

Comparing Budget vs. Expense

Click the Compare Budget and Expenses link to get a look at how your estimated costs matched your actual expenditures. This tool will give you a summary comparison by budget and expense category types.

5. Working with Deposits

5.1. Creating a Deposit

A common scenario plays out at many churches around the country where as the trip prepares to leave a discrepancy is discovered between what the mission leader believes their team has raised and what the accounting department has a record of. The purpose of the Deposit Report is to eliminate the he said / she said between trip leaders and the finance department.

The deposit report was designed for ministries where trip leaders collects funds from the team members and then turn in that money to the missions/finance departments at a later date. You may not find the deposit report particularly useful if your church/ministry has team members or donor submit contributions directly to the church office.

General Process Overview

  1. Team leader collects funds from team members at a team meeting
  2. Team leader creates a deposit report from undeposited contributions (usually cash/checks)
  3. Team leader prints the deposit report and submits it, along with the cash/checks, to the missions or finance department.
  4. The missions/finance department counts the money and verifies that it matches the deposit report.
  5. The missions/finance department user logs into ManagedMissions and marks the deposit as verified.
  6. The deposited contributions can no longer be edited/deleted by the team leader. Because missions/finance has verified the deposit both sides have a common understanding of the mission trips financial standing.

Creating a Deposit Report

Go to the Fundraising tab and choose Create Deposit Report under Related Options. You will be presented with a list of all undeposited funds. Select the check box at the top to select ALL rows or click the specific rows you wish to deposit.

Click the Create Deposit button when complete. Your contributions will be assigned a unique deposit batch number. To print the deposit report click the 'Options' menu and choose Print Deposit Report. A .pdf file will generated which you can print or send via email.

Submit this document along with your contributions to your missions or finance department. You can see a list of all previous deposits, along with their Deposit Status, by going to Fundraising > Related Options: Manage Deposits.

Unverified Deposits can be canceled and regenerated. Once a deposit has been Verified it cannot be canceled by a team leader (or team admin) nor can the contributions be edited.

Account Admins can always edit a contribution even if it is associated with a Verified deposit report.

5.2. Verifying a Deposit

6. Importing and Exporting Financial Data

6.1. Importing Contributions

Go to the Account Admin section (very top of screen) > Imports & Exports Tab > Start New Import button

Choose an Import Type of Contributions


 

There are two import templates you can utilize. These templates are necessary so that we can correctly map the data from your file to the correct fields within ManagedMissions.com. The templates can be downloaded via the Download Sample Template link on the import page as well as in the links at the bottom of this page. In most cases you'll have your own excel of .csv file that is a little different then the templates we have provided. In this case you will need to rearrange and rename the columns in your file to match one of our templates or copy/paste the data from your file into our template.

 

Update Duplicate Records Checkbox

In general, if you import the same .csv file into ManagedMissions a second time you will create duplicate contributions for your participants. The 'Update Duplicate Records will attempt to match the imported contributions to existing records and update those existing records with the new data. Extreme caution should be used when utilizing the Update Duplicate Records checkbox as it can corrupt your contribution data if not used correctly. The use of a contribution Import/Export key is required to use this feature.

 

Beginning Import

Click the Begin Import button to begin your import. Your records will be imported into a work table and pre-validated before the import officially begins. ManagedMissions will not move the data from the work table to the contributions table until the data has passed all pre-validations and is ready for a 100% successful import. If any errors are found in your import rows you will be guided through an process on screen to correct your errors. After each error is corrected ManagedMissions will run through its validation routines again automatically. Once there are no more errors to resolve your data will be automatically imported.

 

Finishing an Import in an Error State

Sometimes a pre-validation error may require you to leave the import screen. You can continue or delete a previously started import by going to Account Admin > Imports & Exports.  To delete a pending import hover over the row to see the trashcan icon.

 

6.2. Exporting Contributions

Contributions can be exported from ManagedMissions in two locations:

From within a Mission Trip

Open your mission trip and go to the Fundraising Tab > look under the Related Options menu (right side) > Export Contribution Data

 

From within Account Admin

Go to the Account Admin section (very top of screen) > Imports & Exports :: look under the Related Options menu (left side) > Export Contribution Data

 

The exported file will be in .CSV format (comma separated values) and look similar to this: