Developer overview

Four ways to work with Karani programmatically.

	Direction	Use for
REST API	You → Karani	Reading and writing contacts, gifts, pledges, tasks
Webhooks	Karani → you	Reacting when something changes
Lead capture	Web → Karani	A form on your site that creates contacts
Zapier	Both	Connecting to other apps without writing code

Before you build

Check whether something already does it. Karani has direct integrations for Mailchimp, Stripe, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Blackbaud, Virtuous, Aplos, Zeffy, Microsoft To Do, and more — those handle the edge cases you’d otherwise discover yourself.

For one-off data movement, the CSV importers and exports are usually less work than an integration.

Getting a key

API keys are generated from Integrations — karani.co/account/services. Find the API card and click Get Key.

The key is displayed once

Copy it immediately. If you lose it, hit Refresh on the API card to generate a new one — which invalidates the old key and breaks anything using it.

Scope

A key is tied to a user and acts on their account. There’s no separate permission model — anything the user can do, the key can do.

Treat it as a credential with full access to your donor data: server-side only, never in client-side JavaScript or a mobile app, and out of version control.

Where to go next

API authenticationHow to pass your key, and what the errors mean.

API referenceEvery endpoint, with request and response shapes.

WebhooksEight events you can subscribe to.

Lead capture formsOne line of script, contacts land in Karani.