> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rescueconsole.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Funds & appeals

> What a giver says their money is for, and what made them give: two different questions, kept apart.

These are two lists that look identical and mean opposite things, so before anything else:

|            | What it is                                                                                                                 | Who chooses it                           |
| ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| **Fund**   | What the money is **for**. A giver picking a fund has said their gift is for that, and you have agreed to use it that way. | The giver, on your donation form.        |
| **Appeal** | What made somebody give: the spring mailer, the gala invitation, the reactivation email.                                   | You, when you record or review the gift. |

A rescue that puts "Spring mailer" in the **Funds** list has quietly told every donor their gift is restricted to a mailer. If you are about to add something, the question to ask is: *would I be comfortable telling this donor their money can only be spent on this?* If yes, it is a fund. If it is how you reached them, it is an appeal.

Both lists are under [Settings → Finance & adoption → Funds & appeals](/settings/finance). Anyone whose role has **See** on Fundraising can read them; adding and changing needs **Change** on Fundraising.

## Funds

| Field                | What it means                                                                                                                |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Name**             | What the giver reads on your donation form.                                                                                  |
| **Code**             | Your own reference, for your books and your imports. Optional, and no two funds can share one.                               |
| **What it pays for** | One line under the name on the form. "Angel Fund" tells a giver nothing; this is where it says what it does.                 |
| **Offered**          | Whether the fund appears on your donation form. Turn it off for one that exists only for your books, such as a bequest fund. |

New funds are added at the end of the list, and the list is the order a giver sees.

### On your donation form

A rescue with no funds is asked nothing: every gift is unrestricted, exactly as before. As soon as you have one fund marked **Offered**, your donation form and every campaign page gain one question, with **Wherever it is needed most** first and chosen by default. That is deliberate: an unrestricted gift is the most useful kind, and a form that makes somebody pick a restriction has talked them into one.

## Appeals

| Field                   | What it means                                                                                  |
| ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Name**                | How you will recognise where a gift came from.                                                 |
| **Code**                | Your own reference. Optional, and no two appeals can share one.                                |
| **Campaign by default** | The [campaign](/fundraising/campaigns) a gift from this appeal joins unless you say otherwise. |

An appeal never appears on a public page. It is yours, and some of them would be unwelcome reading: a donor should not find "Lapsed donor reactivation" on your website.

### The default campaign

An appeal is **how you asked**; a campaign is **what the money is for**. Setting a default saves the step everybody forgets: a gift recorded with that appeal and no campaign joins the campaign you named.

It applies **when the gift is recorded**, and only then:

* A gift that names a campaign keeps the campaign it names.
* A gift recorded with no campaign **on purpose** stays that way.
* Changing an appeal's default later does not touch gifts already recorded, and adding an appeal to a gift afterwards does not fill in a campaign. An edit is a correction, not a re-entry.

## Recording them on a gift

**Log a donation** and a gift's **Edit** form show **Fund** and **Appeal** beside **Campaign**, and only once you have made some. A gift can carry all three: a $50 gift to the Medical Fund, from the spring mailer, counted towards the Winter Appeal campaign. The three totals each count that $50 once, for three different questions, and that is not double counting.

A gift through your donation form or a campaign page carries the fund the giver chose. It carries no appeal, because an appeal is yours to record.

## What each has raised

Both lists show **Raised** and **Gifts**: **Completed** gifts only, with deleted ones excluded, exactly as a campaign's total works. A pending gift is money somebody has promised.

## Archiving

Nothing is deleted. **Archive** takes a fund off your donation form and out of the pickers, and leaves it on every gift that named it, because last year's gift still went to it. **Bring back** reverses it. A gift you are recording by hand can still name an archived fund: somebody entering last month's post may well be entering gifts to a fund they closed last week.