Campaigns overview

A campaign is a fundraising push with a start, an end, and a goal of its own — a year-end appeal, a capital campaign, a project fund, a matching challenge.

Without campaigns, all giving is one undifferentiated stream and you can’t answer “did the spring appeal work?” With them, you can.

The Karani campaigns page listing campaigns with their date range, goal, and amount raised — Every campaign, active and past.

What a campaign gives you

Its own goal, independent of your annual pledge goal
A progress bar on the campaign page and on your dashboard while it’s running
A list of gifts attributed to it
Tasks scoped to the campaign

A campaign detail page showing a goal progress bar reading 11 percent, a table of gifts with date, amount, contact and type, and a Tasks panel — A campaign in progress: goal, raised to date, the gifts behind it, and the work attached.

Campaigns vs. your annual goal

They measure different things and both are useful.

	Annual pledge goal	Campaign goal
Period	Your fiscal year	The campaign’s dates
Measures	Total support committed	What this specific appeal raised
Set in	Budget settings	The campaign itself
Shown on	Finances, dashboard	Campaign page, dashboard

A gift can count toward both — it’s income for the year and the result of an appeal.

Campaigns vs. events

If your appeal is a gathering with tickets and attendees — a banquet, a gala, a dinner — use a fundraising event instead. Events include registration, ticketing, check-in, and volunteers.

An event can be linked to a campaign, so the money raised at a gala counts toward a wider push.

Where to go next

Creating a campaignName, dates, goal — and how to attribute gifts to it.

Tracking campaign resultsReading the progress bar, and working out what a campaign actually netted.