Getting to Know Your ActBlue Account

In this article:

1. Setting up an account
2. Logging into your account
3. Navigating your account
4. Finding your fundraising tools in the Dashboard
5. Before you begin fundraising

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Setting up an account

Before you get to know your ActBlue account, you’ll need to create one! First, you’ll need to get the campaign or organization you’re fundraising for set up on ActBlue. You can get your group set up here. Most groups can get set up in just one day!

Once we give you access to your group on ActBlue, we’ll send you an email. If you do not already have an ActBlue login associated with your email address, we’ll ask you to activate your new account by saving a password or, if you’re using a Gmail address, confirming your email using Google. Now you’re all set to log in!

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Logging into your account

Head to secure.actblue.com and log in to your account by clicking the “Sign in” button in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage.

If you’re an admin for one campaign or organization, you’ll be brought to your group’s Dashboard, where you can find your fundraising data and tools:

If you’re an admin for two or more campaigns or organizations, you’ll land on a list of your groups with easy links to your Dashboards and reporting data:

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Navigating your account

Your most important tools are located in the navigation bar at the top of your screen, where you can easily access your campaign or organization’s Dashboard (fundraising center) or edit your account settings:

1. The Recent menu: Clicking on this shows you pages you recently visited on ActBlue for easy access.
2. The Dashboards menu: A list of campaigns and organizations on ActBlue you are an admin for. Click on a group to head to its Dashboard, where you will find all the important fundraising information and tools you need.
3. The Manage menu: Where you can find information about personal contributions you make, as well as important account settings. Click on “Settings” to change your password, enable and manage two-factor authentication, view your recent account activity, and manage email alerts. Click on “My ActBlue Express” in the Manage menu to access information about your personal contributions, ActBlue Express settings, and fundraising for groups that you are not an admin for.
4. Help: Clicking on this brings you to our support site, where you can find all the information needed for using our tools.

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Finding your fundraising tools in the Dashboard

The data and tools you need to begin building a successful fundraising program are located in your Dashboard. Your Dashboard is where you’ll create contribution forms: the donation pages customized by you on ActBlue that you send to supporters so they can make donations. We’ll give you a quick tour of your Dashboard so you know where to find the tools you need to make, personalize, send, and evaluate your forms!

To get to your group’s Dashboard, click on the Dashboards menu in the navigation bar at the top of your screen, and then click on the campaign or organization you’re fundraising for in the menu.

Your Dashboard will look something like this:

The first thing you’ll see is your Dashboard Overview. This is the homepage of your Dashboard — here, you can quickly analyze all of your fundraising data and create new contribution forms.

You can view fundraising data from the last week, month, year, or any customized length of time. You can get to know your donors’ giving behaviors and make smarter decisions by tracking how many contributions were made using ActBlue Express, PayPal™, Apple Pay®, or a mobile device. Everything is tracked in real time so you can make faster decisions when it comes to your fundraising program.

On the left, you will see a “Create form” button for making new, different kinds of forms. Clicking on “Create form” will lead you to the “Choose a form type” page, where you can select which form you would like to make and fill in the basics.

Below the “Create form” button is your Dashboard toolbar, full of tools for your fundraising:

1. Overview: The homepage of your Dashboard where you can view your fundraising data and quickly create a form.
2. Contribution Forms: A list of all of your contribution forms, event forms, and merchandise forms, so you can find them after creation, edit them, and see how they’re performing.
3. Brandings: A list of brandings (custom designs you made for forms and receipts), and which forms currently use them.

4. “Tools” section: Where you’ll find basic, important data for contributions to you, compliance, and issuing refunds.

• Contributions Search: Your center for finding every contribution made to your group through ActBlue. Read more about viewing contribution information and issuing refunds in this tab here.
• Reporting: Contribution data you’ll need to complete accurate compliance reports, sorted by check.
• Downloads: The place to create downloadable CSV reports of contribution data sorted by time period or contribution type.
• Refunds: All refunds made by you and our Customer Service team in response to donor errors and credit card chargebacks, which you need for compliance reports. You can read more about issuing refunds here.
• Integrations: ActBlue integrations include webhooks and Google Sheets. Webhooks allow you to connect your ActBlue contribution data to third-party services like a content management system, mailer, or customer relationship management system. The Google Sheets integration allows you to export reports to Google Sheets for easier data management. 

5. “Insights” section: Where you’ll find valuable data that shows you donor behavior, the health of your recurring program, and statistics for your Tandem forms (forms where donors can split a donation between you and other groups).

• Donor Segments: An easy feature you can use to access, visualize, and download sophisticated donor data (and then use to create targeted email lists without writing code).
• Recurring: Where to find essential data on recurring contributions and export reports of your active recurring contributions, recurring projections, or your canceled recurring contributions.
• Tandem Fundraising: A list of the other campaigns and organizations receiving contributions on Tandem Fundraising forms you make. You can learn how to actually make Tandem Fundraising forms that split one donation across many groups here.

6. “Admin” section: Where you can manage basic account settings, like giving other people access to your group’s Dashboard and setting up email alerts.

• Settings: Where you can update your campaign or organization’s contact information and your mailing address where we send your checks, unless you are a campaign that had to set up a merchant account. (Groups with merchant accounts receive funds directly in their bank account!) You can also add or update your campaign or organization’s website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts in the Settings tab of your Dashboard toolbar. Simply copy and paste the URLs into the designated fields under “Online Presence.” 
• User Access: Where you can add team members to your campaign or organization’s account.
• Email Alerts: Where you can set up email notifications letting you know when your group receives a donation or refund over a certain dollar amount so you can be aware of big numbers without digging through the data manually.

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Before you begin fundraising:

Now that you’ve gotten to know your ActBlue account and where to access important tools and data, here are a few things we recommend doing before fundraising:

1. One last check to make sure your mailing address is correct: Head to the “Settings” tab of your Dashboard toolbar. Your mailing address is where we will send your checks, so you want to make sure this address is exactly where you want your money sent! (But if you’re a candidate that had to set up a merchant account, the money will be deposited directly into your bank account!)
2. Give other admins access to your group’s Dashboard: After our team at ActBlue gives you access to your campaign or organization’s Dashboard, it’s up to you to give everyone else on your team access to your data and tools so you can begin fundraising together.
3. Know the rules of refunds: All donor refunds are subtracted from your pending funds we are waiting to send to you each week. If the refund amount surpasses your pending amount, we must wait for you to raise enough money to bring your account to at least net zero before sending your disbursement. Whether you have questions or have a deactivated account with a negative balance, always reach out to us at support@actblue.com to get the help you need!

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Next: Creating & Customizing Contribution Forms