Pledges: Turn Donor Commitments Into Fulfilled Giving
Every church faces moments when a big vision requires more than a one-time gift. A building expansion, a mission trip, a capital campaign, or a multi-year ministry initiative often calls for donors to make a commitment—a pledge—and then fulfill it over time. Pledges help your congregation plan together, and they give your leadership a clearer picture of what resources you can count on as you move forward.
Why Pledges Matter for Church Planning
When donors make a pledge, they’re saying more than “I’ll give when I can.” They’re making a specific commitment to a specific cause over a defined period. That commitment helps your church set realistic goals, communicate progress to the congregation, and steward resources wisely. Whether you’re raising funds for a new worship center, sending a team overseas, or launching a multi-year outreach initiative, pledges turn vision into actionable financial planning.
OnlineGiving.org’s Pledges feature lets you record donor commitments, track fulfillment automatically, and see at a glance who has completed their pledge, who is making progress, and who might need a gentle reminder. Donations made through your giving website to funds assigned to the pledge campaign are automatically counted toward each donor’s pledge. No manual data entry is required once the campaign and funds are set up.
From Commitment to Fulfillment
Pledges are tied to Pledge Campaigns—each campaign has a goal, a date range, and one or more funds assigned to it. When a donor gives to any of those funds during the campaign period, their gift is automatically applied to their pledge. You can view a summary dashboard showing total pledged, total received, completion rate, and progress toward the campaign goal. Status labels like Completed, Almost Complete, In Progress, Needs Attention, and Not Started help you prioritize follow-up and celebrate milestones.
You can also send welcome emails when a pledge is created and reminder emails to donors who haven’t yet started or who are behind on their commitment. Bulk email options let you send welcome or reminder emails to all eligible pledges in a campaign with a single click, or use the Smart Send option to automatically send welcome emails to new pledgers and reminders to those who need them.
Integrations and ChMS Sync
If your church uses Planning Center Online, Ministry Platform, or Rock RMS, pledge campaigns can be linked to external campaigns in those systems. Pledges created or edited in OnlineGiving.org are pushed to your ChMS, and you can manually trigger a sync to pull updates from the external system. Pledges linked to an external campaign cannot be deleted from OnlineGiving.org; they must be removed from the ChMS first.
In this article, we’ll overview the OnlineGiving.org Pledges feature.
Pledges User Guide
The Pledges page in the OnlineGiving.org control panel lets you view, create, edit, and manage donor pledges for your pledge campaigns. Pledges are tied to a campaign and a donor; the system tracks how much was pledged and how much has been received through approved transactions to the campaign’s assigned funds. Access requires the Donor Admin role. From the left navigation, go to Pledge Campaigns and then Pledges, or navigate directly to /admin/pledges.
Key Takeaways
- Create pledges manually or via donor form: Add pledges from the control panel or let donors submit pledges through a pledge campaign form on your giving website.
- Automatic fulfillment tracking: Donations to funds assigned to the campaign are automatically counted toward each donor’s pledge within the campaign date range.
- Status-based views: Filter by status (Completed, Almost Complete, In Progress, Needs Attention, Not Started) to focus on follow-up or reporting.
- Welcome and reminder emails: Send individual or bulk welcome and reminder emails to pledgers.
- ChMS sync: Pledges sync with Planning Center Online, Ministry Platform, and Rock RMS when campaigns are linked.
Table of Contents
- Pledge Overview
- Creating Pledges
- Pledge Tracking and Fulfillment
- Managing Pledges
- Email Communications
- ChMS Integration
- Frequently Asked Questions
Pledge Overview
Pledges represent donor commitments to a specific pledge campaign. Each pledge records the donor, the campaign, the pledged amount, and the amount received so far. The system calculates received amounts by summing approved transactions from that donor to funds assigned to the campaign, within the campaign’s start and end dates.
Pledge Summary Dashboard
When you view pledges (especially when filtered by campaign), a summary panel appears at the top with four key metrics:
- Total Pledged: The sum of all pledged amounts for the filtered set, with the number of pledges.
- Total Received: The sum of all received amounts, with overall completion percentage and a progress bar.
- Completion Rate: The percentage of pledges that have been fully fulfilled (received amount meets or exceeds pledged amount).
- Campaign Goal or Pledged to Received: If the campaign has a goal amount, a fourth card shows progress toward that goal. Otherwise, it shows the pledged-to-received ratio.
Understanding Pledge Statuses
Each pledge has a status that reflects its fulfillment progress:
- Completed: The donor has given at least the pledged amount. The pledge is fulfilled.
- Almost Complete: The donor has given more than 75% of the pledged amount.
- In Progress: The donor has started giving but is below 75% of the pledged amount.
- Needs Attention: The donor has not started giving, and either the campaign is more than 30% complete (for campaigns with an end date) or the campaign has been running 60+ days with less than 30% collected (for ongoing campaigns).
- Not Started: No transactions have been recorded toward the pledge yet.
Statuses are calculated automatically when pledge totals are updated. You can filter the pledge list by status using the Status Filter dropdown.
Creating Pledges
You can create pledges in two ways: manually from the control panel or through a pledge form on your giving website when donors submit their commitment. This section covers manual creation.
How to Create a Pledge
- Log in to the control panel.
- Go to Pledge Campaigns and then Pledges, or navigate to /admin/pledges.
- Click the Create New Pledge button.
- Select the Pledge Campaign from the dropdown.
- Enter the Pledged Amount (required, minimum 1).
- Search for and select the Donor using the donor search field.
- Optionally check Send welcome email to donor with campaign details (checked by default).
- Click Save.
Pledge Form Fields
Pledge Campaign: Choose the campaign this pledge belongs to. Only one pledge per donor per campaign is allowed. If the donor already has a pledge for the selected campaign, you will see a validation error.
Pledged Amount: The dollar amount the donor has committed to give. Must be at least 1.00.
Which Donor is this Pledge for? Use the search field to find the donor by name, email, or other keyword. Type a search term and click Search (or press Enter). Select the correct donor from the results. The donor must exist in your user/donor database.
Send welcome email: When creating a new pledge, you can optionally send a welcome email that includes campaign details. This is checked by default. The email content is configured in the pledge campaign settings.
Donor Search
The donor search looks across first name, last name, and concatenated name combinations. Enter a partial name or email and click Search. If one match is found, it is auto-selected. If multiple matches appear, click the donor you want to select. The selected donor’s name and details will appear in the dropdown button.
Pledge Tracking and Fulfillment
Pledge fulfillment is tracked automatically. The system counts approved transactions from the pledge donor to funds assigned to the campaign, within the campaign’s start and end date range.
Fund Assignment
Fund assignment is configured at the Pledge Campaign level, not on individual pledges. When you create or edit a pledge campaign, you assign one or more funds (or sub-funds) to that campaign. Any donation the pledge donor makes to those funds during the campaign period is counted toward their pledge.
For example, if your “Building Fund 2025” campaign is assigned to the “Building Fund” and “Capital Campaign” funds, a donor who pledges $5,000 will have their pledge fulfilled by any combination of gifts to those two funds between the campaign start and end dates.
If no funds are assigned to a campaign, pledge totals will not update. Ensure your campaign has at least one fund assigned in the Pledge Campaign settings.
Viewing Pledge Progress
On the Pledges list, each row shows the donor name, pledged amount, amount received, status, and a progress bar. The progress bar reflects the percentage of the pledge that has been fulfilled. You can also:
- Click View Profile in the actions menu to open the donor’s user profile.
- Click View Transactions to see all transactions for that donor within the campaign date range, which helps verify which gifts are being counted toward the pledge.
Managing Pledges
How to View Pledges
- Log in to the control panel.
- Go to Pledge Campaigns and then Pledges.
- The Pledges page displays all pledges for your church. If you navigate from a specific campaign (e.g., from the Pledge Campaigns list), the view may be filtered to that campaign.
- Use the campaign link in the panel header to switch campaigns or view all pledges.
How to Search and Filter
The filter row below the column headers lets you narrow results:
- Name: Search by donor first name, last name, or full name.
- Pledged Amount: Use comparison operators such as >=100, <=500, >50, or <100. You can include dollar signs and commas; they are stripped before filtering.
- Trans Total Amount (Received): Same comparison operators as pledged amount.
- Status: Filter by Completed, Almost Complete, In Progress, Needs Attention, or Not Started.
Active filters appear as removable chips above the table. Click the X on a chip to remove that filter. You can also use the Status Filter dropdown for quick status filtering. Use the Results Per Page dropdown (10, 20, 50, or 100) to control pagination. Click column headers to sort by Name, Pledged Amount, Trans Total Amount, or Status.
How to Edit a Pledge
- On the Pledges list, click the actions menu (gear icon) for the pledge.
- Select Edit Pledge.
- Update the Pledge Campaign, Pledged Amount, or Donor as needed.
- Click Save.
Note: The welcome email option is only available when creating a new pledge, not when editing.
How to Delete a Pledge
- On the Pledges list, click the actions menu for the pledge.
- Select Delete Pledge.
- Confirm the deletion.
Pledges linked to an external ChMS campaign (Planning Center Online, Ministry Platform, or Rock RMS) cannot be deleted from OnlineGiving.org. You will see an error message instructing you to remove the pledge from your external ChMS first.
Email Communications
Pledge campaigns support welcome and reminder emails to help donors stay engaged with their commitment.
Welcome and Reminder Emails
Welcome Email: Sent when a pledge is first created. It includes campaign details and encourages the donor to begin fulfilling their pledge. You can send it when creating a pledge (via the checkbox) or later from the actions menu on any pledge.
Reminder Email: Sent to donors who have not yet completed their pledge. Use it to gently nudge donors who haven’t started or who are behind. You can send it individually from the actions menu.
Email subject and body content are configured in the Pledge Campaign settings. Each campaign can have custom welcome and reminder email templates.
Bulk Email Options
When viewing pledges for a specific campaign, the Email All dropdown appears. It offers:
- Send All Welcome Emails: Sends the welcome email to all pledges in the campaign.
- Send All Reminder Emails: Sends the reminder email to all pledges in the campaign.
- Smart Send — Welcome & Reminders: Sends welcome emails to pledges that haven’t received one, and reminder emails to pledges that are eligible for a reminder. Completed pledges are skipped.
A confirmation dialog shows how many emails will be sent before you proceed. Emails are queued and sent in the background; you will see a success message when the queue is processed.
ChMS Integration
Pledge campaigns can be linked to external campaigns in Planning Center Online, Ministry Platform, or Rock RMS. When a campaign has a sync integration configured:
- New and updated pledges are pushed to the external system automatically.
- The Sync Pledges button appears on the Pledges page. Click it to manually trigger a sync that pulls updates from the ChMS. Syncs also run automatically once daily.
- Pledges linked to an external campaign cannot be deleted from OnlineGiving.org; remove them from the ChMS first.
Sync integration is configured in the Pledge Campaign settings, not on individual pledges. If you do not see the Sync Pledges button, your campaign may not have an external campaign ID set, or the ChMS integration may not be enabled for your church.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why isn’t my pledge showing any received amount?
Pledge fulfillment is based on approved transactions to funds assigned to the campaign, within the campaign date range. Check that (1) the campaign has at least one fund assigned, (2) the donor has made donations to those funds, (3) the donations fall within the campaign start and end dates, and (4) the transactions are approved. Use View Transactions from the pledge actions menu to see which transactions are being considered.
Can a donor have more than one pledge for the same campaign?
No. Each donor can have only one pledge per campaign. If you try to create a duplicate pledge, you will receive a validation error. To change the amount, edit the existing pledge.
How do I assign funds to a pledge campaign?
Fund assignment is done when creating or editing the Pledge Campaign, not on individual pledges. Go to Pledge Campaigns, create or edit the campaign, and in the campaign form you will find a multi-select field for Page Funds. Select the funds (or sub-funds) that should count toward pledge fulfillment for that campaign.
What happens if I delete a pledge?
The pledge record is removed from OnlineGiving.org. Past transactions are not deleted; they remain in your transaction history. If the pledge is linked to an external ChMS (Planning Center, Ministry Platform, or Rock RMS), you cannot delete it from OnlineGiving.org—you must remove it from the ChMS first.
Can donors create their own pledges?
Yes. When you add a pledge campaign form to your giving website (via Custom Forms or the pledge campaign page), donors can submit their pledge amount. The system creates the pledge record and can send a welcome email. Donors can then view their pledge and make gifts toward it on the campaign page.
What does “Needs Attention” mean?
A pledge is marked Needs Attention when the donor has not started giving and the campaign is sufficiently advanced. For campaigns with an end date, this happens when more than 30% of the campaign timeline has passed. For ongoing campaigns without an end date, it happens when the campaign has been running 60+ days and less than 30% of the pledged amount has been collected. It helps you identify pledgers who may need a follow-up call or reminder.
Can I still manage pledges for an inactive campaign?
Yes. Setting a campaign to Inactive only removes it from the giving page navigation. All pledge management features remain fully available: you can view, create, edit, and delete pledges, send welcome and reminder emails, and sync with your ChMS. The campaign overview and pledge summary dashboards continue to work normally.
Need help setting up pledges or pledge campaigns? Contact us at support@onlinegiving.org or (615) 206-4000. We offer courtesy setup assistance to get you started.