Running a giving campaign
How to run a time-boxed giving drive on one of your funds — setting a goal and an end date, what the thermometer actually counts (cash and checks included), where the drive appears for members and visitors, running more than one at once, and editing or ending one early.
A campaign is a time-boxed drive layered on a fund you already have. The fund is the permanent bucket the money lives in; the campaign is the push — "can we raise $15,000 for the roof by October 31?" When the drive ends, the fund carries on exactly as before.
That's the whole idea: a drive changes how you ask, never how you account. Gifts still land in the fund's ledger, so your statements, balances, and board reports are untouched.
You'll find campaigns on the Giving page, under Campaigns.
Starting a campaign
Click Start a campaign. You'll choose:
- The fund it's for — the drive designates an existing fund, and every gift to that fund during the drive counts toward it. A fund can only host one campaign at a time, so funds already running a drive won't appear in the list.
- A headline — the short, human line your church will see, like "A new roof before winter."
- A goal — the dollar target that fills the thermometer.
- An end date — the last day the drive runs. It starts the day you create it.
- A story (optional) — a few sentences on why it matters.
- A photo (optional) — a picture makes a drive far more compelling. Without one, Psalmly uses a designed gradient that looks good on its own.
Save it and the drive is live immediately.
What the thermometer actually counts
This is the part worth reading twice, because it surprises people in the best way.
A drive's total is everything given to its fund between its start and end dates. Psalmly doesn't count "gifts that came through the campaign button" — it counts the fund. Which means:
- Cash and checks count automatically. Anything you record with Record offering against that fund lands in the drive's total, exactly like an online gift.
- A regular online gift to that fund counts, even if the giver never saw the drive.
- A visitor's gift from your public page counts, with no account needed.
So the number on the thermometer is the number your church actually took in for that purpose. It reconciles to your books because it is your books.
The flip side, and the reason to be careful with wording: the list of people who funded a drive legitimately includes members who never pressed a campaign button — someone who simply gives to the Building Fund every month is part of that total. When you thank people, thank the whole church rather than a filtered list. See When a campaign finishes.
Where the drive shows up
Once it's running, the drive appears:
- On your admin Giving page, with its thermometer and giver count.
- In the member app, on the church's Giving tab — on web and on mobile.
- On your public page, so visitors see it too.
- At your shareable giving link (
yourchurch.psalmly.app/give) — the one to put on a bulletin, a QR code, or a Facebook post. When someone shares that link, the preview image shows the live thermometer.
One thing to watch: a drive can only be seen if its fund can be seen. If you hide or archive the fund a drive is running on, the drive disappears from members and visitors too. Psalmly warns you when that happens — restore or unhide the fund and the drive picks right back up.
Running more than one
You can run several drives at once, as long as each is on a different fund. Your church sees the most urgent one featured, with the others listed below it as Other current drives, so a second drive never buries the first.
Editing, ending early, and what happens after
Open any campaign to edit its headline, story, goal, end date, or photo while it runs.
End early closes a drive before its planned end date — useful when you've hit the goal or the need has changed. It stamps today as the end date, and the drive stops accepting new gifts against itself. Both dates stay visible afterward so the change never looks like a glitch.
If any members set up a recurring gift to the drive, those gifts stop on their own when the drive ends. Nobody has to remember to cancel anything, and no one keeps getting charged for a drive that's over.
A finished drive stays visible to your church for about two weeks — a quiet "here's how it went" — and then tucks itself away under past campaigns, where you can always find it.
Falling short of a goal is not a failure, and Psalmly never presents it as one. A drive that raised $12,400 of $15,000 raised $12,400 your church didn't have before.