DonorPoint

 Getting started 

Your first raffle will begin with a meeting with DonorPoint to discuss the details of your raffle, the start and end dates, the raffle items, price points, reporting requirements, and other important information. You should also have discussed whether you will want email announcements and updates sent to members of your organization or community. All this information is necessary to set up your raffle correctly in the DonorPoint system. 

When your raffle has been set up you will be able to manage details of the sales and review sales data as well as any other information that you need to manage your raffle. 

Sharing your raffle 

Your raffle has a specific link that you can share with your public. Clicking on this link will bring them directly to your catalog page where they may make their raffle ticket purchase. You can place this link on your website, your Facebook or Twitter pages, or in an email that you send to your public. 

To find this link, log on to DonorPoint and click on the Catalog in the gray menubar, which will open your catalog. 

From the list of items on left side of the screen (not in the gray menubar) select “Sharing.” 

At the top of the screen, you will see a line containing a URL and a description of “Default short URL.” Copy that URL to your clipboard by clicking on the clipboard link on the right side of the screen.  

The complete link is now copied to your clipboard and may be pasted wherever you wish. 

Note: If you want to create a customized URL for your raffle, talk to your DonorPoint representative.  

Back Office and Offline Sales 

There may be times (for example, out-of-state sales, check or cash transactions) when you will need to sell tickets to your raffle through your office. This can be done by accessing your system through the “Login” function. “Login” makes options available to you that are not available to online purchasers, such as the ability to bypass the Ohio restriction, as well as the ability to accept cash and check payments.  

Note - If you plan to accept cash or check payments for raffle tickets be sure to discuss this with your DonorPoint representative so the system can be set up properly. 

You access this functionality by logging on to DonorPoint and clicking on “Catalog” in the gray menubar, which will open your catalog. 

When the catalog opens you login to the online system through the “Tasks” button on the lower right side of the screen. 

Enter your DonorPoint username and password, then click “Sign In.” When you see your catalog page, select the desired item for purchase. 

The form which appears will be virtually identical to the form that online purchasers will see, except for extra options in the Cart which will allow you to accept forms of payment such as cash or check. Additionally, the feature that restricts sales to “Ohio only” will be removed, allowing you to enter transactions from purchasers in any state. Enter the transaction information as well as the correct form of payment. Upon successful completion of the transaction, a confirmation email will be generated for the purchaser as well as an attachment containing the tickets purchased. 

Cash Turn In 

If you are selling paper tickets in addition to online tickets, you can enter information from those sales into DonorPoint for tracking purposes. This can be done by accessing your “Cash Turn-In" item through the “Login” function. You will be able to enter the transaction information on this form; however, email confirmations and attached tickets will not be generated as they are for back office sales. And because you will have the ticket stubs from the paper tickets in hand, tickets will not be generated by DonorPoint as they are for online sales.  

You access this functionality by logging on to DonorPoint and clicking on “Catalog” in the gray menubar, which will open your catalog. 

When the catalog opens you login to the online system through the “Tasks” button on the lower right side of the screen. 

Enter your Big River username and password, then click “Sign In.” 

From the list of items select “Cash Turn In” or other, depending on how your catalog has been set up. 

The form which appears will be virtually identical to the form that online purchasers will see, except for extra options in the Cart which will allow you to note forms of payment such as cash or check. Enter the transaction information as well as the correct form of payment. As noted above, a confirmation email and attached tickets will not be generated, but the transaction information will be included in your reports and tracking tables. 

Dashboard 

Depending on the complexity of your raffle you may have a dashboard set up for you in the DonorPoint system. The dashboard is where you can see details of your raffle – performance according to classroom, team, or other categories you may choose, information on the individual sellers of raffle tickets based on established quotas, overall sales information, and more. You will also be able to print reports of your choosing based on the information you need. The specifics of your dashboard will be discussed with the DonorPoint team as part of your kick-off meeting.  

You can set the dashboard to be your home screen so it will be visible immediately when you log on to DonorPoint.  To do this click on the “Make This My Home Page” link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. 

Reporting 

You can get information about your raffle progress and run standard reports directly from the raffle. 

Open the “Events” menuitem in the gray menubar, then open the raffles list by clicking on the “Raffles” menuitem at the top of the screen. 

To open a raffle, point to the desired raffle line and click on “Edit.” 

The Raffle Homepage will show you the current total raised by your raffle as well as a pivot table containing information about raffle transactions. 

You can also run customized reports from your dashboard, if you have one set up for your raffle. The buttons for the reports that have been set up for you can be found at the bottom of the dashboard screen. You may have more or fewer buttons than are shown in this illustration.  

Transactions 

Sometimes you may have to add information to or change information on a transaction, change an email for a purchaser, or resend tickets to a purchaser. You do these things through the Transaction item. 

Locating a transaction 

Go to “Transactions” on the gray menubar. Click to open. Click on the filter icon in the blue bar. 

When the search box opens, type in the purchaser’s name or email address, depending on the information available to you. Click on “Search.” 

When you have located the desired transaction use your mouse cursor to hover over the record and click on “Edit” to open the transaction. 

Changing email address on a purchaser 

Scroll down the page to the Contact field. Click on the pencil icon to open the contact information. 

Scroll down the page to the “Email” field. Make your corrections in that field. When you are finished go to the bottom of the screen and click on “Save and Exit.” 

Add information to or change information on a transaction 

To see the details of the item or items purchased, scroll down in the screen to find the list of “Order Items.” To add or change details of the items, such as name of seller or alternate name on the ticket, click on the pencil icon to open and edit that item. 

To remove a seller, locate the “Contact” field and click on the “x” next to the name you want to remove. 

To add a seller, locate the “Contact” field and click on the “Select Existing” button.  Select the correct seller from the list presented.  

To add or edit other custom item information, open the “Order Item” by clicking on the pencil icon. 

Locate the correct custom field and either select or enter or correct the desired information. 

When you have made all the desired changes to the transaction click on “Save and Exit.” 

Resending tickets to a purchaser 

Sometimes a purchaser contacts you to say that they have not received their raffle tickets in their email. Or perhaps they entered the wrong email address and need their tickets resent to the correct address. When this happens, you can resend the tickets and the original confirmation email to the purchaser. 

Go to “Transactions” on the gray menubar. Click to open. Then click on the filter icon in the blue bar. 

When the search box opens, type in the purchaser’s name or email address, depending on the information available to you. Click on “Search.” 

When you have located the desired transaction use your mouse cursor to hover over the record and click on “Edit” to open the transaction. 

Scroll to the bottom of the screen and locate the Tasks button on the left side. When you click on that button you will see a list of options. Click on “Resend Email.”  This will resend the confirmation email and the tickets to the purchaser.  When you are finished click “Save and Exit.” 

Note: If a change has been made to the custom fields that will appear on the ticket stub it will also be necessary to regenerate the stub before sending to the purchaser. For instructions on how to do this contact DonorPoint Support. 

Printing tickets 

You can print ticket stubs from DonorPoint for the raffle tickets that were sold online or entered through the back-office functionality. The file is created in a pdf format and you can print the file on perforated card stock suitable for your raffle drawing. Depending on the size of your stock and the setup of the ticket, you will average 18 tickets per single sheet. 

Print tickets from the dashboard 

If you have a dashboard you can print your raffle tickets from there. 

Enter the dates you wish to print and click “OK.” Be sure you have loaded your printer with the correct card stock. 

Print tickets from the raffle 

Open the “Events” menuitem in the gray menubar, then open the raffles list by clicking on the “Raffles” menuitem at the top of the screen. 

To open a raffle, point to the desired raffle line and click on “Edit.” 

From the “Tasks” button on the bottom right side of the screen, click on “Generate Tickets (Date Range).” 

Select the desired ticket template from the dropdown, then enter the dates you wish to print and click “OK.” Be sure you have loaded your printer with the correct card stock. 

Selecting winners without using tickets 

You can select the winners of your raffle by printing a list of all tickets sold, exporting that list to an Excel spreadsheet and then using a random number generating application to select a line number from the spreadsheet which will correspond to the winner or winners.   

To print the correct list, see Reports, above. Select the Raffles Tickets report. Export the report to Excel by clicking on the X icon in the upper right side of the screen. 

To find a true random number generator you can use to select your winners, open Google and type in “true random number generator.” You will be presented with several options to choose from and instructions on how to use them. 

Emails 

DonorPoint contains email functionality that allows you to send emails to ticket sellers, potential purchasers and other groups of people that you want to contact. These can be emails that announce the start of your raffle as well as provide updates and prompts for additional purchases. Emails can contain links to take the recipient directly to your raffle pages. 

To create an email open the “Email” menuitem in the gray menubar, then open the messages by clicking on the “Email Message” menuitem at the top of the screen. To create a new message click on the “Create New Email Message” button. 

Enter a name for your email message and the subject line in the correct field.  Then go to the Message field and create your email message using the WYSIWYG tools available to you. When you have finished click on the green “Create” button at the bottom of the form. 

After you have created your email message contact DonorPoint Support to help you set up the list of recipients for your email and scheduling your email for sending.