Donation records

Every donation your organization receives lands in a central transaction log in your workspace. Whether it came through a fundraising page or was recorded manually by staff, the record is always in one place. This article covers how to find, read, and act on those records. For setting up the page donors give through, see Creating a fundraising page. For managing donors' recurring gifts, see Recurring donations.

Finding donations

Donations enter your workspace in two ways: a supporter gives through a fundraising page, or a staff member records a gift manually. Both produce a row in the same transactions table.

To see them, open Fundraising in the workspace sidebar, then Donations > Transactions. The list shows every donation your organization has received, newest first. You can search by donor name or email, and filter by status (Completed, Pending, Failed, or Refunded). If the list can't be loaded, the page says so and offers Try again instead of showing an empty list.

Recording a gift by hand

When a supporter gives outside your fundraising page, for example cash at an event or a mailed check, record it on their contact. Open the contact under CRM and select Record donation. Enter:

• Amount -- the gift in dollars and cents, for example 25 or 25.50.
• Donor email -- filled in from the contact when they have one.
• Method -- Cash, Check, or Other.
• Election -- shown only in campaign workspaces with contribution limits turned on. Pick the election the gift counts toward. It starts on the election a gift made today would count toward, so you only need to change it when the gift is meant for a different election. See FEC compliance settings.
• Date received (optional) -- leave it empty to use today. It can't be a future date.
• Note (optional) -- context for your team.

Owners and admins can record gifts. The gift appears in the transactions list as Completed and in the contact's activity. In a campaign workspace, a gift recorded with an election counts toward the donor's running total for that election, the same as a gift made through your fundraising page.

Reading a donation record

Each row shows the donor's name and email, the amount, the status, whether it is a one-time or recurring gift, and the date. Anonymous donations show "Anonymous" in place of the donor name on this list; your organization's internal records still retain the full donor identity for reporting and compliance purposes.

When part of a gift has been refunded, the amount refunded shows under the gift's amount and its status reads Partially refunded; it still counts under the Completed filter. A gift with a dispute also shows a dispute badge beside its status (see Disputes below).

A donation doesn't create a contact in your CRM. When the donor's email address or OrganizeOS account matches a contact you already have, the gift shows in that contact's history under CRM, alongside their events, volunteering and messages, and it counts toward the contact's engagement score from the next nightly update (see CRM basics).

Donations held for review

A small number of donations may be automatically flagged by fraud guardrails (for example, a mismatch between the card's country and other signals) and held in a Review queue rather than counted as routine. If any donations are waiting, a Review button with a count appears at the top of the Donations overview page. Approving or rejecting a held donation records a compliance decision on the record; it does not refund the charge or affect whether the donor was already charged.

Refunds

Your organization's owners and admins can refund a completed donation from its row menu on the Transactions page. An admin of a parent organization who views your workspace doesn't have this action, and neither does a custom role. You can refund the full amount or a partial amount; funds return to the donor's original payment method. Once Stripe confirms the refund, a gift refunded in full shows as Refunded, and a partial refund shows as Partially refunded.

A refund can never send back more than the donation brought in. If you have already refunded part of a gift, the most you can still refund is the remainder, and choosing a full refund returns exactly that remainder. The refund window names that remainder for you -- it shows the amount still refundable rather than the original gift, tells you how much has already gone back, and caps the partial field at what is left. If part of the gift was refunded somewhere else after the page loaded (in the mobile app or in Stripe, say), a refund the window allowed, full or partial, can be refused as more than is now left: the refund window tells you and refreshes the page, so you can check what is left and try again. A partial amount above what is left is lowered to it. Once a gift has been refunded in full, the Refund action no longer appears for it. Refunds are only available for donations processed through the current payment flow -- a donation record that predates your organization's Stripe setup, one entered without a completed payment, or one that never settled can't be refunded through the tool.

OrganizeOS keeps its platform fee when you refund a gift. The refund window shows the fee, and the amount you refund comes out of your organization's Stripe balance.

A gift can't be refunded while a chargeback on it is open, or after one is lost: the Refund action doesn't appear for it. During a bank inquiry you can still refund, and a full refund closes the inquiry without a dispute fee; the refund window says so. See Disputes below.

Occasionally a refund fails at the donor's bank after Stripe accepted it, for example because the card was closed. When Stripe reports that, OrganizeOS puts the gift back: the refunded amount, the status and a fundraising page's total return to what they were before that refund.

When a refunded gift was made on a fundraising page, the amount raised on that page goes down by what was refunded, whether you refunded it here or in Stripe. The total never goes below zero.

Disputes

A dispute starts when a donor's bank asks about a charge (an inquiry) or the donor asks their card issuer to reverse it (a chargeback). Stripe runs the dispute on your organization's Stripe account, and OrganizeOS keeps the donation record in step with it.

You're told when one opens that you can respond to. Your organization's owners and admins get a notification in OrganizeOS and an email. Both give the amount and the date of the gift and the deadline Stripe gives for your response. When Stripe gives no deadline, they ask you to check your Stripe Express Dashboard to see whether and by when you can respond. They never name the donor: open the gift on the Transactions page to see who gave it. An inquiry that turns into a chargeback is announced again. Some chargebacks can't be challenged, under the card network's rules or local regulations: Stripe closes those as lost as soon as they open, so no notification or email goes out, and the gift shows Chargeback lost.

The badge. While a gift has a dispute, the Transactions page shows a badge beside its status. It asks for a response by the deadline Stripe gives until you have answered (with no deadline it reads just Disputed or Inquiry); then it reads Dispute under review or Inquiry under review while the donor's bank or card issuer decides; and afterwards it shows the outcome: Dispute won, Chargeback lost, Inquiry closed, or Dispute prevented.

Respond in Stripe. While a dispute is open, the gift's row menu has Respond in Stripe. It opens your organization's Stripe Express Dashboard, where Stripe first asks for a code it sends to the phone number or email address on your Stripe account, and then shows the dispute so you can submit your response. The email links to the dashboard's sign-in page too. Only your organization's owners and admins have this action. Respond by the deadline Stripe gives, when there is one.

What each outcome does.

• An inquiry: no money has been taken. You can respond in Stripe, or refund the gift in full to close the inquiry without a dispute fee. An inquiry that closes changes nothing on the gift.
• An open chargeback: Stripe holds the disputed amount until the card issuer decides. The gift can't be refunded meanwhile, and its status and totals don't change.
• A chargeback you win: the gift stays as it was and the badge reads Dispute won.
• A chargeback you lose: it counts as a refund of the disputed amount. The gift shows as Refunded, or Partially refunded when only part of it was disputed, the amount raised on its fundraising page drops by the disputed amount, and the gift can no longer be refunded.
• A late win: a card issuer sometimes reverses a lost chargeback in your favor. The disputed amount is then no longer counted as refunded: the gift returns to Completed and the fundraising page's total goes back up.

If a gift is disputed more than once, the badge shows the dispute that needs attention first: an open chargeback, then an open inquiry.

Receipts and thank-you emails

A receipt email is sent automatically to the donor's email address when a donation completes. Receipts are sent by the email system connected to your workspace, so make sure it is configured before your first live campaign.

No receipt is sent for a gift that was already refunded, or charged back, by the time the payment was recorded. A receipt that went out before a refund or a chargeback isn't taken back, and a receipt can't be resent from the OrganizeOS mobile app once any part of a gift has been refunded, or while a chargeback on it is open or after one is lost.

Compliance fields for political organizations

If your organization is a political committee, federal law requires capturing the employer and occupation of donors who give $200 or more in aggregate, and your donation form can be configured to require the donor's mailing address and eligibility attestations as well. These fields are stored on every donation record and are visible from the transaction record.

Keep your own filing calendar and thresholds in mind: OrganizeOS stores the data your filing will need, but the filing itself goes through your compliance process.

Why this matters

Your transaction log is the authoritative source of record for every dollar your organization raises. Keeping it accurate protects you during audits, builds donor trust through reliable receipts, and gives your team a complete picture of supporter relationships. For political committees, clean transaction data makes compliance filings faster and reduces the risk of costly errors. When your donation records are in order, your whole fundraising program runs on firmer ground.