Custom Inputs
ActBlue user roles and permissions dictate what users can do on our platform. If the tools or features in this article are unavailable to you, speak to your entity Admin first about updating your permissions.
In rare cases, you might want to collect additional information about your donors when they give to your campaign or organization. All ActBlue contribution forms already require donors to fill out important information such as their name, email, address, occupation, and employer, and some forms will also ask for phone number and employer’s address depending on local campaign finance laws. For the most part, campaigns and organizations will not need to gather more information and add steps to the giving process. But if you do need to ask donors for additional info, here’s how to add a custom input to your form.
First, locate the form in the Contribution Forms page of your Dashboard. Click on the “Edit” button to open your form and the form editor!
In the form editor, navigate to the “Form Customization” tab.
In the “Custom Input” section at the bottom of the tab, you can choose between a
Text field or Radio buttons.
The text field is a good option for when you want donors to answer an optional, open-ended question or give feedback, while radio buttons are great for asking quick survey questions or enabling donors to opt-in to receiving messages or a gift.
Text Field
For open-ended responses, select “Text field” from the “Choose an Input Type” dropdown. In the “Label” field, clearly specify the information that you need from your donors. For example, label the field “Who referred you?” if you want your donors to enter which of your grassroots supporters referred them to give to you.
Radio Buttons
If you would like your donors to choose from a few clear options that you provide, select “Radio buttons” from the “Choose an Input Type” dropdown. First, enter your question or prompt in the “Label” field. Then, customize the options you’d like to offer to donors. You must have at least two options, but you can give up to five choices total for donors to select from by clicking the “Add Option” button.
Please note that because all ActBlue forms already ask for important donor information, you can only add one custom input to your form to ask for an additional piece of information.
You can see what your Custom Input looks like on your form in the real-time form preview. Whether a first-time donor, ActBlue Express user, or returning donor, all donors will see your custom input when they reach the step to enter their payment information. You can view your form as different types of donors by clicking the “Previewing as” dropdown in the upper right corner of the form navbar. You can also preview the form as yourself when you close the form editor.
For a first-time donor, a custom input will look like this:
Once everything looks good on your form, click the “Publish” button at the top of the form editor to save your changes!
Downloading Donor Information From Custom Inputs
Click the “Stats” button in the form navigation bar to go to your form’s Statistics page.
From the Stats page, you can download all contributions by clicking the blue “Export all contributions” in the top right corner.
You can also find donor information from custom inputs in the reports available in the Downloads tab of your Dashboard. Read this article to find out more about downloading your donor information!
The amount of support that the ActBlue Customer Service Team can provide is dependent on the permissions that you have. Check with your entity Admin about your assigned role.
If you have any questions, please contact our support team using the email address you use to access your ActBlue account.