Can international supporters donate? Yes. The GiveSmart Fundraise system is designed primarily for U.S. donors, but it will function for international donors with the following caveats:
- No Text to Donate Pledges: To pledge via text, a US mobile phone number is required.
- No Embedded Forms: International Donations will not work if the form is embedded in your website, so make sure to have a direct link to the form available.
- Only US Dollars: The donation will be charged in US dollars, so only US dollars will be on the form.
With those caveats in mind, anybody, anywhere can make a donation through a GiveSmart Fundraise donation form. So if you want to accept donations from people in other countries, simply share the link to your donation form through social media, email or any other channel.
There will be some considerations you may wish to think about when designing your forms. At minimum, be very careful with which fields you make Required fields. If an international donor can't enter their equivalent of that field or if they don't have the same thing in their country, they will not be able to donate.
Possibly the easiest concession you can make for international donors is to create a separate form just for them. That way you can take advantage of the options only US donors can give you, but still allow for international donations.
Things to consider:
Mobile Number Field: the Mobile Number field will only accept 10 digit phone numbers. So if you want to accept international donations on your form, be sure to leave the Required box by Mobile Number unchecked. Alternatively, you can hide the Mobile number field and create a new Short Answer Form Element to ask for their international number.
Country: By enabling the Country field on a form, when an international guest selects any country other than the United States the 'Zip Code' will change to 'Postal Code', and the 'State' field will update to accommodate a 'Province/Territory'.
