Online donations: Encourage your audience to give back this holiday season

Online donations: Encourage your audience to give back this holiday season

Hello fellow form builders,

The holiday season isn't just about shopping and festivities. There's a special zeal to give back to the community as a gesture of gratitude. While donation boxes are still around, many businesses are focused on their online presence. That means you can use online donations and reach a larger audience for more donations. In this post, we'll show you how to design online donation forms and increase the collection amount for your cause. 

Designing an effective donation form

A successful donation form is one that your donation goal. That may be shopping for underprivileged kids during the holidays, or throwing a Christmas party at a retirement home so the seniors don't feel lonely while they're away from their family. To collect more, you need to have an effective form in a place where people notice it. 

Keep it simple

Choose a simplistic design for your donation form, with your cause clearly stated on your form or the page where you host it. If you have a brick and mortar store, you can place the QR code for your form around your store with a call to action to root for your cause and donate. Clear, crisp design and the minimum amount of fields will make the whole experience delightful for your customers.

Put your thank you(s) in place

Set up automated tax receipts and thank you notes for your audience. This can keep them updated about their donations and does away with any hassle that they may face while filing their taxes. Email notification or SMS updates can also help you to give your donors a special note of thanks, along with a receipt for their donation. 

Place online payment option

Configure an online payment field so that your respondents can pay on the go as they fill their form. As more people move to cashless and contactless transactions, having an online payment gateway configured is a huge plus. You can also suggest a donation amount by prefilling the payment field. This can increase your average donation amount, compared to leaving the field empty for donors to choose the amount. 

Sharing your donation forms

People are much more likely to give in public than in private. Having said that, the placement of your donation form plays a major role in how successful your campaign is. If your store gets a lot of foot traffic, you could place a device with the form at check out counters or place the QR code for the form around your store. If you run an online business, you can choose to share your donation form on social media, send it as an email campaign, or even create a donation page and embed your form there. 

Donations are an important part of the holiday season. People love to give as much as they receive. With simple tweaks to the way you collect, you can help your cause even more. This holiday, create stunning online forms and move one step closer to fulfilling your cause. 

If you have any questions or feedback to share, feel free to comment below or drop us an email at support@zohoforms.com

    • Sticky Posts

    • 5 ways to adapt social distancing this holiday season using online forms

      Hello fellow form builders,  Social distancing measures are being woven into the fabric of daily business practices, ending many forms of direct-contact business. To adapt to this, businesses might want to change their business practices, adding necessary

    • Online donations: Encourage your audience to give back this holiday season

      Hello fellow form builders, The holiday season isn't just about shopping and festivities. There's a special zeal to give back to the community as a gesture of gratitude. While donation boxes are still around, many businesses are focused on their online

    • Getting your forms ready for the holidays

      Hello fellow form builders! With the holidays coming up, we've all started to get the hang of the new normal as people get ready for all the festivity around. This year is different from others in the past, which means businesses are trying out new ways

    • 5 Ways to pull off holiday events like a pro using online forms

      Hello fellow form builders, This is the fifth post of the five-part series on "Getting ready for the holiday season with Zoho Forms." This series aims to help you make the best of your forms and grow your business this season. Holiday events are suppose to be fun, and so is hosting them. So if you are overwhelmed and it seems like your event organizing is all over the place, then something has gone wrong. Yet, sweat not - we've got you!   The entire event planning process can be made easy by automating

    • 5 ways to improve your holiday fundraising with online forms

      Hello fellow form builders,  This is part four of our five-part series on "Getting ready for the holiday season with Zoho Forms." This series aims to help you make the best of your forms and grow your business this season. Asking for money isn't easy, yet it's a crucial step for any fundraising group or organization. During this holiday season, make collecting donations fun and more effective with our list of the top five ways to improve your overall fundraising process. Let's dive in. 1. Create

    • Recent Topics

    • Sync images with Shopify/Cart

      Hello, sync images with shopify or other cart, it cuts out the double work of having to upload to shopify/cart and zoho. Thanks

    • Allow selection of select inactive users in User data fields

      Hello, We sometimes need to select a previous employee that has an inactive account in the User data field. For example, when doing database cleanup and indicating actions are done by a certain employee that weren't filled out when they were part of the

    • Is it Possible to Modify Standard Report Urls

      Is there a way to permanently modify standard report Urls? Use case: Suppose I have a Products report. Showing list as timeline, calendar, or kanban doesn't make sense. Want to hide that from users by adding #Report:Products?zc_ShowAs=false&zc_Print=false

    • Assessment Answered - Automation (Related List)

      Hello everyone, We have linked a candidate assessment to our job posting. When someone applies, they are required to answer all the assessment questions. However, some candidates submit their applications without completing the questions. In such cases,

    • Smarter holiday planning with yearly-specific Holiday Lists

      Hello everyone! Managing holidays and business hours is now easier and more efficient. Holiday Lists now support holidays that fall on different dates every year, while business hours now supports more than one holiday list. This helps businesses manage

    • External User onboarding for zoho connect is not really intuitive.

      So the external user is sent an invite, which has a button that directs them to login to zoho to view the invite, but if they don't have a zoho account, they cannot access that invite, which seems kinda silly, as there is not real way on for them to create

    • Having trouble fetching contents of Zoho Connect Feeds using the API, requesting alternative API documentation.

      I'm trying to retrieve feed/post data from Zoho Connect using the API but facing challenges with the current documentation. What I've tried: OAuth authentication is working correctly (getting 200 OK responses) Tested multiple endpoints: /pulse/nativeapi/v2/feeds,

    • How to upload file to Connect using API?

      Hi there. I looked at the API documentation and nowhere did it mention how to use the API method to upload a file even though it is mentioned that it is possible to be done so. Please help.

    • Select the task view on the board in the Zoho Connect iPhone app

      Hello. How do I select the task view on the board in the Zoho Connect iPhone app? The Android app has this functionality.

    • The power of workflows in Zoho Marketing Automation - Video Webinar

      In this Zoho Marketing Automation video webinar, our experts walk you through: Why you may want to create marketing workflows How to create marketing workflows Use Zoho CRM data and apply workflows to automate your marketing strategy How workflows can

    • Auto tagging

      Some of the articles I enter into Notebook get there when I enter them in Raindrop.io and IFTTT copies the articles in Notebook. When this happens the notes are tagged but instead of useful one word tags with topic the tag pertains to the specific article

    • Constant refresh required in lots of Zoho tabs

      "Hey Zoho, if you can sync my notification bell across 15 tabs using a BroadcastChannel, why can't you send a 'Data Refresh' signal the same way? We don't need a browser reload—we just need the data to sync without us clicking F5 like it's 1999." "PS:

    • What's New in Zoho Billing | January 2026

      Excited about the latest enhancements in Zoho Billing? Our January updates bring an intelligent AI assistant, smarter subscription management, and improved tax compliance, saving you time and reducing manual work. Dive into the details below to see how

    • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

      Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

    • Inserting images into Articles or Knowledgebase

      Hi, Are there any plans in improving the Knowledgebase text editor so it would allow inserting images through Windows clipboard via copy-paste? Say for example I took a screenshot using the snipping tool in Windows and I'd like to insert that image to

    • Links not functioning in Zoho mail

      Links that are included in emails I receive are not activating. Nothing at all happens when I click on them. I have researched FAQs and this forum to no avail. Any suggestions?

    • Zoho Mail iOS app update: Manage folders and tags

      Hello everyone! In the most recent version of the Zoho Mail iOS app, we have brought in support to manage(create, edit and delete) the folders and tags. Create folders Create Tags Edit/ Delete folder In addition to this, we have also brought in support

    • Zoho Social API for generating draft posts from a third-party app ?

      Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. I have a question regarding Zoho Social. I am developing an application that generates social media posts, and I would like to be able to incorporate a feature that allows saving these posts as drafts in Zoho Social.

    • [Important announcement] Zoho Writer will mandate DKIM configuration for automation users

      Hi all, Effective Dec. 31, 2024, configuring DKIM for From addresses will be mandatory to send emails via Zoho Writer. DKIM configuration allows recipient email servers to identify your emails as valid and not spam. Emails sent from domains without DKIM

    • Create an Eye-Catching Announcement Widget for Your Help Center

      Hello Everyone! In this week’s edition, let’s explore how to keep your customers updated with exciting news in the Help Center. See how ZylkerMobile wowed their customers by bringing updates right to their portal. ZylkerMobile, the renowned brand for

    • UI issue with Organize Tabs

      When looking at the organize Tabs window (bellow) you can see that some tabs are grayed out. there is also a "Add Module/Web Tab" button. When looking at this screen it's clear that the grayed out tabs can not be removed from the portal user's screen

    • Super Admin Logging in as another User

      How can a Super Admin login as another user. For example, I have a sales rep that is having issues with their Accounts and I want to view their Zoho Account with out having to do a GTM and sharing screens. Moderation Update (8th Aug 2025): We are working

    • Task list flag Internal/External for all phases

      Phases are commonly used in projects to note milestones in the progression of a project, while task lists can be used to group different types of tasks together. It makes sense to be able to define a task list as either internal or external however the

    • Zoho CRM Feature Requests - SMS and Emails to Custom Modules & Time Zone Form Field

      TLDR: Add Date/Time/Timezone form field, and be able to turn off auto timezone feature. Allow for Zoho Voices CRM SMS Extension to be able to be added to custom modules, and cases. Create a feature that tracks emails by tracking the email chain, rather

    • Our Review Of Zoho CRM after 60 Days

      The purpose of this is to just share with Zoho why I love their product, but ultimately why I could not choose Zoho CRM for our next CRM. About two months ago we begun a CRM exploration process for our financial planning firm, based in Texas. We already

    • Link Purchase Order to Deal

      Zoho Books directly syncs with contacts, vendors and products in Zoho CRM including field mapping. Is there any way to associate vendor purchase orders with deals, so that we can calculate our profit margin for each deal with connected sales invoices

    • Extend the Image Choice Field

      Hi, The New Yes/No field is great for what it does, and the Image Choice Field is good but could be better with some functions from the Yes/No field. Take an example, rather than just Yes/No you want Yes/No/Maybe (Or more than 3 choices), but unlike the

    • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

      Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything

    • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

      Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

    • New 2026 Application Themes

      Love the new themes - shame you can't get a little more granular with the colours, ie 3 different colours so one for the dropdown menu background. Also, I did have our logo above the application name but it appears you can't change logo placement position

    • Zoho Desk: Macro to assign Ticket to self

      Hello, We are using macros in Zoho Desk to set some fields and send a response. I would also like to assign the ticket to myself (or whoever applies the macro). I can only set a fixed agent in the macro, so I would have to create one for every agent.

    • Turn off Knowlege Base Follow options and Follower lists

      Is there a way to hide or turn off the option in the Knowledge Base for users to follow specific departments/categories/sections/articles? If not, is there a way to turn off the public list of followers for each of those things? Otherwise, customer names

    • Enterprise Data management solutions

      I'm on the hunt for the perfect Data management solution for my organization. I've been doing a ton of research across different websites, but honestly, it's just left me more confused! A friend suggested I check here, so I'm hoping someone can point

    • New Feature: Audit Log in Zoho Bookings

      Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re excited to introduce Audit Log, a new feature designed to help you track all key actions related to your appointments. With Audit Log, you can maintain transparency, strengthen security, and ensure accountability.

    • Automated Task reminder

      First question: If a task does not have a reminder set, will it still send an email notification that the task is due today? If not, how can I set up an automated reminder to send the task owner an email that it is due on a certain date?

    • Zoho Support - contract notifications

      Hi, I have a few questions about using Zoho support. Is there a way to add custom contract notifications like (90 days before expiry send notification e-mail to agent and customer, then another 60 days before expiry and another 30 days.). And is it possible

    • Kaizen #230 - Smart Discount-Based Quote Approvals Using CRM Functions and Approval Process

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to the Kaizen series! Discount approvals are a standard part of sales governance. Most organizations need something like this: Discount % Required Action < 10% Auto-approve 10–19.99% Sales Manager approval ≥ 20% VP Sales approval

    • How to create a new Batch and update Stock via Inventory?

      Hi everyone, We are building an automation where a user enters batch details (Batch Number, Mfg Date, Expiry, and Quantity) into a Custom Module. I need this to trigger an API call to Zoho Inventory to: Create the new batch for the item. Increase the

    • OAuth2 Scope Error - Incorrectly defaulting to CRM instead of Analytics.

      Hello Zoho Team, I am trying to connect n8n to Zoho Analytics API V2 for a simple automation project. Despite using the correct Analytics-specific scopes, my OAuth handshake is failing with a CRM-related error. The Problem: The authorization screen shows:

    • Is it possible to create a meeting in Zoho Crm which automatically creates a Google Meet link?

      We are using Google's own "Zoho CRM for Google" integration and also Zoho's "Google Apps Sync" tools, but none of them provide us with the ability to create a meeting in Zoho CRM that then adds a Google Meet link into the meeting. Is this something that

    • Next Page