Form Builder offers a way to customize the look and feel of your donation form and confirmation page. You can change color schemes, add text and images, rearrange sections, and more! The actual configuration of form options, like donation amounts and restrictions, will still be done within your control panel.
To read about how to customize your Landing Page, please head to this Help Desk article.
To read about how to customize the Events Widget (non-landing page version) that displays a list of your events, head to this Help Desk article.
Contents:
Please note: If you're not using widgets and if we didn't customize the area surrounding your donation form FOR you (which means you're using something called a simple skin), you have access to an additional option in Form Builder so you can customize the skin (referred to as the Landing Page) yourself!
For an overview of Form Builder, check out this video:
Using Form Builder
Basic Navigation Within Form Builder
Once you’ve logged in and selected the form you’d like to manage, click the Form Builder link in the upper right-hand corner of your form level control panel.
You can exit Form Builder at any time by clicking the ✖️ along the top of your screen:
If you have unsaved changes, you’ll see a message to the left of the X indicating that you should save or undo changes by clicking Save Page along the side of your screen.
At the top right, you’ll see a drop-down menu that gives you options to customize your form. Multistep and single-step forms will have different options in the drop-down menu, as shown below.
Multistep form options
Single-step form options
Editing Sections and Widgets
To configure any of the editable sections or to edit a widget once you've placed it on your form, you’ll click the gear icon located in the upper right-hand corner of each section item.
Above and below your form and confirmation page, you'll see Top Content and Bottom Content. The Top and Bottom Content areas will always look the same and will allow you to add text, images, or even embed video above or below your form.
On single-step forms, you'll see an option to Reorder Sections next to the button for Edit Top Content.
With this option, you can reorder the Choose Gift, Donor Details, Additional Details (if applicable), and Payment Details sections of the single-step form.
Widgets Tab
The first tab you’ll see in your toolbar is the Widgets tab.
Each form page layout has the same sets of drag-and-drop widgets.
You’ll only see the thermometer widget if you’ve added a goal in the Goals section of your form-level control panel. You can read more about adding goals here.
When you're editing the confirmation page, you'll notice an additional widget: the Social Sharing widget. This is covered in the Confirmation Page section of this article.
Thermometer Widget
With the thermometer widget, you can add a progress thermometer to your donation form. After dragging and dropping the widget to the desired location on your form, you can configure the settings to alter how it will display on the public-facing form.
- If desired, add a Widget Title for your thermometer. This will display above the widget on the public-facing form.
- Select either Left, Right, or Center for the Widget Title Alignment.
- Next, choose a Goal from the drop-down. What you create in the Goals section of your control panel will display here.
- After that, select a Style: either Thermometer or Simple.
- Then, decide if the thermometer’s Layout should be Vertical or Horizontal.
- If desired, change the Fill Color using the color-picker tool.
- Select which information you'd like displayed with your thermometer on the public-facing form:
- Display Achieved Amount will show the dollar amount raised on your form during the time period you entered for your goal (if you entered one)
- Display Goal Amount will display the total dollar amount of your goal
- Display Goal Completion Percentage will display the % of your goal that's been raised
- Display Thermometer Countdown will show a timer counting down to the end date you entered for your goal (if you entered one)
Thermometers automatically update every 60 seconds to display your goal progress.
If you're using a landing page, you can also add the thermometer widget in a layout container on the landing page itself. Any thermometers placed on your landing page will NOT be displayed when you embed your form because the widget is not on the actual form—it's in the container surrounding it.
When you've configured the widget settings how you'd like, click Update. Be sure to click the green Save Page button before navigating away, as well.
Heading Widget and Text Widgets
If you'd like to add a heading to your form or a section, drag and drop the Heading widget and enter your desired text.
To add a small block of text to your form, use the Text widget. The font is a smaller size than the Heading widget.
Here's what they look like on your public-facing form:
Spacing Widget
Need to add a little spacing to your form? Use the Spacing widget! You can enter how many pixels you'd like the added space to be.
Custom Content Widget
This widget can be used for adding a block of formatted text to your form. The widget offers an editor so you can style the text however you'd like. You can also add hyperlinks, images, and custom HTML, if applicable. There's even a handy spellchecker!
Social Sharing Widget
You'll notice the Social Sharing widget is only available on the Confirmation Page. We'll go over how to set up this widget later in the article.
Theme Tab
In the Theme tab, you'll find some simple controls to customize the primary color and font on your form.
Changing the Primary Color will alter the color of the donation amount containers and the submit button on your form.
Once you click the box, you'll see an area where you can choose a custom color. If you have the code for a certain color you'd like to use, input it in the field next to the # icon. Click OK when you're done making adjustments.
In the Font drop-down, choose which font you'd like to use on your form.
Advanced Tab
If you have any Custom CSS you’d like to apply to your form, you may do so in the Advanced tab. Any CSS added here will be applied to all pages/steps of your donation form.
Form Sections and Editing
Now that we’ve applied global changes to the form, let’s take a look at what we can do with each section.
Please note: When customizing text on the form, you may see “Suggested Tags” indicated. Suggested tags reflect best practices, and we recommend you use them. Suggested tags can be removed if you don’t want to include the information they generate, but they cannot be replaced with different tags.
Configuring Sections or Steps
Depending on the display options you configured in your control panel, certain items such as dedications may appear in the Choose Gift, Donor Details, or Additional Details section or step of your form. The controls are the same regardless of location.
Choose Your Gift Header
If you're using a multistep form layout, you'll see the Choose Gift section at the top of your form. When you click the gear icon, you'll see the default Title text and an Additional Text where you can customize the text displayed on your form. You can also customize the Text-To-Donate Title for display on mobile devices. Be sure to click Update after making changes!
Choose Gift Settings
On a multistep form, you'll find this under Donation Form: Choose Gift in the drop-down menu.
Wording Tab
On the Wording tab, you'll find multiple fields to customize.
Please note: The fields you see here will vary depending on your form's settings.
Let's take a look at what some of the fields control on your forms.
- The One-Time Tab Label and Recurring Tab Label change the tabs along the top of your form.
- The Recurring Drop-down Label and Frequency Text labels offer a way to customize the default "Give" text and frequency options that appear for recurring donations on your form.
- The Display Recurring Impact Statement checkbox and fields offer a way to display an additional impact statement on your Recurring gifts tab.
- The Fine Print and Change Dates Label labels alter the text that appears when donors choose to make a recurring gift. The "change" language will only appear if you've toggled on the option for donors to choose a start date for their recurring gifts. If you toggled on the option for donors to change start and end dates for recurring gifts, you can change the text that appears on your form in the Start Date Label and End Date Label fields.
- Check the Hide Heart Animation box if you don’t want the heart animation to appear when a donor chooses to make an ongoing gift.
- In the Nudge Message field, you can customize the text that appears on your form if you've enabled the recurring upgrade nudge feature.
- If you've enabled GiftAssist and Dedications on your form, these fields will appear below the recurring upgrade nudge. While you can edit the Dedication fields, the same option is not available with GiftAssist. That language is changed under Donation Settings.
You can also control in which order Dedications and GiftAssist appear on your form. Simply click on the edge of the GiftAssist box and drag it up or down to move it above or below the Dedication section.
Please note: The Dedications area can be set to display on the Choose Gift, the Donor Details, or the Additional Details step of your form. If you don’t see it on this step, your settings are configured for it to display on a later step of the form.
- If you've enabled an Employer Matching Gifts integration, you'll see a field where you can edit or hide the Employer Matching Gift Notice that appears on this page.
- The Text-To-Donate Message field controls the thank-you text that appears when a donor clicks through to your form after sending in a text keyword.
- If you've toggled on and added a minimum and or maximum online gift amount in your control panel, the Minimum and Maximum Gift Messages fields control what appears when a donor chooses to enter a custom donation amount in the "Other" field on your form. The %MINIMUM% and %MAXIMUM% tags will automatically populate on your form with the values you set in the control panel.
Settings Tab
On the Settings tab, users can decide whether the form should Default to the One-Time or Recurring gift tab. The Default Tab will appear on the left side of the widget. From here, users can also select an Alternate Button Style for the donation amount buttons.
Use the Amount Alignment drop-down to determine whether donation amounts with descriptions should display on the left or right side of the amount tile.
Align Right
Align Left
If you've enabled Multi-Restriction Giving in your Donation Settings, you'll also see a drop-down here to configure the restriction display settings.
On a multistep form, users can customize the language of the Continue button for text-to-donate transactions. By default, the text-to-donate version of the button has identical placeholder text as the form's regular continue button. However, when you make changes to the text-to-donate Continue button content, this version is only displayed for text-to-donate gifts.
To customize the text of the Continue buttons on your multistep form, click the gear icon on the Give button section of the form to open the Footer Settings. There, you can customize the form's Continue Button Labels.
Donor Details
For the Donor Details portion or step of your form, you can customize the text in the following areas by clicking the gear icon:
- Name field
- Details field
This field contains a tag that automatically populates the name entered by the donor.
You can also reorder the sections of this step by dragging and dropping them.
Additional Details
You can set a variety of fields to display in the Additional Details section or step of your form, including dedications, matching gifts, and custom fields. You can adjust the Title and Additional Text of this section by clicking the gear icon.
If you've configured dedications to appear in this part of your form, you can also edit the labels associated with them.
Please note: This section won't appear in Form Builder until you configure certain features in your control panel and choose to display them in the Additional Details section or step.
Payment Details
The Payment Details section or step of your form contains quite a few options for field label customization. Let's break it into sections:
Payment Content: Gift Summary
These fields control the text that displays when a donor has selected their donation amount.
Payment Method: PayPal
If you're using PayPal as a payment option, you can change and customize default messaging here.
Billing Address
You can customize field labels for billing address and the checkbox that indicates the donor's billing address is the same as their mailing address. Remember, you have the option to toggle these on and off in your system fields.
Accounts: Create New
The fields here will appear in the donor account creation area if you've toggled on the ability for donors to create accounts. This can be adjusted in your form-level control panel.
Accounts: Signed In
The fields here control what appears for saved payment methods and the prompt for adding a new payment method if a donor is logged into their account.
Recurring Upgrade
The recurring upgrade section will appear if you’ve toggled on Recurring Upgrade in your Donation Settings. The fields here control the Recurring Upgrade Heading, Additional Text, Upgrade Button Label, and Cancel Button Label.
Footer Settings
Users can also customize their Payment Details Footer Settings. These settings control the Back Link Label and the Submit Button Label for standard and Text-to-Donate donations.
Confirmation Page
Editing Confirmation Content
On your Confirmation page, you can customize the majority of the text that isn't pulled directly from the transaction details! Click the gear icon to edit the field labels.
Express Donate Additional Fields
If you've enabled Express Donate on your donation form, donors will skip the following fields during the donation process:
- Don’t share my name publicly (System Field)
- Phone (System Field)
- I would like to get news and updates from {OrgNameHere}! (System Field)
- Employer (System Field)
- Any custom field
These fields will, instead, appear on the Confirmation page after the receipt, in the order they would normally display on the donation form:
You can edit the Heading of this area and the Send button text by clicking the corresponding gear icons on the Confirmation step.
Social Sharing Widget (only available on Confirmation page)
The social sharing widget appears on your Confirmation page by default. If you'd like to remove it, click the trash can icon in the upper right-hand corner of the widget. The widget offers a way for donors to share that they made a gift via:
- X
When you click the gear icon to edit, you'll see quite a few customization options. You can enable or disable any of the sharing options. You can customize the default content that gets shared on X in the Default Post Content field.
There are quite a few labels in the email section. Let's take a look at what those mean. In the image below, each element has been labelled so you can easily see what will change when you edit text related to email sharing in Form Builder.
A link to your donation form will automatically be sent in the body of the email so the recipient can click through and make a donation.
Donor Account Widget
Beneath the social sharing widget on the confirmation page donors can customize Donor Account language if Donor Accounts are enabled for your form. While in Form Builder, users will see options to create a donor account or go to their existing donor account. However, when viewing this form live, your donors will see only one of these options at a time. Which option they see depends on whether they gave while logged into a Donor Account.
Clicking the gear icon for the Donor Account section of the confirmation page enables users to edit headings for one time and recurring donations, the Save button label, the heading for donors logged into a donor account, and the additional text associated with the My Account Heading.
Recurring Summary
Donors can access the Recurring Summary page from the email they receive after setting up a recurring gift or making a recurring gift payment.
If you want to edit the contents of the page, you can do so from the Donation Form: Recurring Summary page in Form Builder.
As with other pages in Form Builder, you can adjust most of the Recurring Summary’s wording by clicking the gear icons on the page’s widgets.
You can edit the wording for the Header Content, the Ongoing Gift Details, the Ongoing Gift History, the Donor Account prompt, and the Cancel Ongoing Gift button. The Social Sharing widget is also included on this page by default, but it can be removed.
You can also add Thermometer, Heading, Text, Spacing, and Custom Content widgets to this page.
To get a better idea of how changes you make in Form Builder impact the donor experience, check out this article on What Donors See.
Happy customizing!