FAQ

Short answers to the questions small nonprofits ask us most often. If yours isn’t here, email us — a real person will write back.

Product basics

What is DonorNode?

DonorNode is fundraising infrastructure for small nonprofits — a donation site, recurring giving, and automatic tax receipts, run on top of your organization’s own Stripe account.

Who is it for?

Small nonprofits without a development department. Think two-person teams, executive directors who also run the mail merge, and boards that expect to see every dollar accounted for.

How do I get started?

Connect your Stripe account (or create one on the spot), publish a fundraiser, and share the link. In our pilot, most organizations have a live donate page within an afternoon.

What’s included?

Donation pages, campaign fundraisers with goals and QR codes, recurring giving with vaulted cards, automatic tax receipts with delivery and open tracking, exportable reports, and role-based access for your team.

Is there a free trial?

DonorNode is in pilot with a small set of nonprofits, and setup cost is $0. If your organization sounds like a fit, get in touch — we’ll walk you through it personally instead of dropping you into a self-serve trial.

Do I need to be technical to use it?

No. If you can fill out a form and share a link, you can run a fundraiser on DonorNode.

Money & Stripe

Where does the money go?

Straight into your organization’s own Stripe account. DonorNode never holds your funds and never sits between a donor and your bank.

Do I need my own Stripe account?

Yes — and if you don’t already have one, we help you create it during onboarding with one-click OAuth. The account belongs to your nonprofit, not to DonorNode.

What does DonorNode cost?

DonorNode is in pilot and we’re talking to each nonprofit individually about pricing. What we can promise now: no enterprise contract, no 5% platform cut of donations, and $0 setup cost.

Are there payment processing fees?

Stripe charges its standard payment processing fees on every transaction — those go to Stripe, not to DonorNode, and are separate from anything DonorNode charges.

Who handles refunds?

You do, from your DonorNode dashboard, and the refund is issued through your Stripe account. The refunded gift and its receipt are updated automatically so your reports stay accurate.

How fast do payouts arrive?

Payouts follow your Stripe payout schedule — DonorNode doesn’t slow anything down or add a hold. If Stripe would pay you in two days, DonorNode pays you in two days.

Does DonorNode ever touch my donors’ money?

No. Funds move from the donor directly into your Stripe account. DonorNode is the software layer; Stripe is the money layer.

Recurring giving

How does recurring giving work?

Donors choose an amount and a cadence on your donate page. Their card is vaulted with Stripe and charged automatically each cycle, with a receipt sent every time.

What happens when a donor’s card fails?

Stripe retries the charge on a smart schedule, and DonorNode notifies the donor so they can update their card themselves. You’ll see failing subscriptions in the dashboard so nothing quietly falls off.

Can donors pause or cancel on their own?

Yes. Donors get a self-serve link to pause, change the amount, or cancel — without emailing your office. That’s the point: recurring giving that respects the donor’s time is recurring giving that lasts.

Do you support monthly and annual gifts?

Yes. Donors can choose the cadence that works for them, and switch it later from the same self-serve page.

Do you store card numbers?

No. Cards are vaulted directly with Stripe using Stripe’s tokenization — DonorNode never sees or stores raw card numbers.

Fundraisers

What’s a fundraiser on DonorNode?

A fundraiser is a campaign page — a goal, a story, suggested giving amounts, a cover image, and a live donate button. Every fundraiser gets a shareable link and a QR code you can drop on a flyer or a slide.

How is a fundraiser different from a plain donate page?

A donate page accepts gifts to your organization in general. A fundraiser adds a specific goal and a story — useful for an appeal, a campaign, or an event where donors want to see progress toward a target.

Can I run more than one fundraiser at a time?

Yes. Run as many as you need — an annual appeal, a capital campaign, an event drive — each with its own page, goal, and QR code, all reporting into the same dashboard.

Do fundraisers show progress toward the goal?

Yes. Each fundraiser page shows how much has been raised toward the goal so donors can see momentum without you updating a thermometer graphic by hand.

Do you support peer-to-peer fundraising?

Not yet. Today, fundraisers are run by your organization. Peer-to-peer (where individual supporters run their own sub-pages) is on the roadmap — tell us if it would matter to you.

Reports

What reports come with DonorNode?

Donor lists, campaign totals, gift history, recurring schedules, and year-over-year giving — the numbers your board reads and your accountant trusts.

Can I export the data?

Yes. Every report exports so you can hand it to a board member, an auditor, or a spreadsheet — no scraping the UI or filing a data request.

Are the reports formatted for board meetings and tax time?

Yes. Reports are filterable by year and by campaign, so tax-time exports and board-packet numbers are a few clicks apart, not a spreadsheet project.

Who on my team can see what?

Access is role-based. Your treasurer can see finances, your intern can help publish a fundraiser without seeing donor payment details, and your ED can see it all.

Can I see whether a donor’s receipt was actually delivered?

Yes. Every receipt is tracked to delivery, and opens are tracked too — so when a donor says “I never got a receipt,” you can answer with facts, not shrug.

Data, privacy & security

What data does DonorNode store about our donors?

Only what’s needed to process a gift and send a receipt: name, email, giving history, and the payment token Stripe returns. Card numbers stay with Stripe.

Do you sell or share donor data?

No. Donor information belongs to your nonprofit. DonorNode does not sell, rent, or share donor data — and never uses it to market to your donors.

How is access controlled inside my team?

Every account has a role, and roles determine what someone can see and do — least-privilege by design. Your treasurer sees finances; your intern doesn’t.

Where is our data hosted?

On managed cloud infrastructure with encryption in transit and at rest. Payment data is handled by Stripe under Stripe’s PCI-compliant infrastructure.

Can we delete a donor’s record if they ask?

Yes. Deletion requests are honored, subject to the record-keeping your nonprofit itself has to do for tax and audit purposes (which we help you preserve where legally required).

Where can I read the full privacy policy?

The marketing-site policy lives at /privacy/. The application at app.donornode.cloud is governed by a separate agreement with your nonprofit.

Cancel any time

Can we leave whenever we want?

Yes. There’s no long-term contract, no cancellation fee, and no cooling-off period. If DonorNode stops being the right fit, you can leave.

What happens to our donors and giving history if we leave?

You take it with you. Before you go, you can export your donor list, gift history, and reports in standard formats you can load into whatever comes next.

Do we keep our Stripe account?

Always. Your Stripe account belongs to your nonprofit — DonorNode connects to it, it isn’t ours to keep. Recurring donors continue to be charged through Stripe unless you cancel those subscriptions.

Is there a fee to export our data on the way out?

No. Exporting your own donor and gift data isn’t a premium feature and isn’t gated behind a farewell invoice.

What about donors who are on a recurring plan?

You choose. You can leave the recurring subscriptions running in Stripe, migrate them to another tool that supports Stripe subscriptions, or cancel them — the decision is yours, not ours.