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Givebear Docs

Guides for setting up Givebear, accepting donations, running events, operating kiosks, and helping donors.

Givebear brings fundraising, events, donor records, website widgets, and kiosk giving into one workspace. These docs are organized around the questions people ask while running that system, not around every route in the dashboard.

If you are new, start with the dashboard setup path. If you are fixing a specific problem, jump to the guide that matches the work in front of you.

I need to launch Givebear

Create the organization, finish Stripe and plan setup, publish the first fund, and test the donor path.

I need to understand money

Learn how Stripe Connect, plan fees, transactions, refunds, disputes, reports, and billing fit together.

I need to run an event

Create an event, set ticket types, collect registration answers, check people in, and reconcile payments.

I need kiosk donations

Pair a device, route kiosk gifts, use remote actions, understand offline limits, and troubleshoot field issues.

I need website embeds

Add donation, calendar, event, and prayer-time widgets to an existing website without custom checkout code.

I need the JavaScript API

Load window.Givebear, render embeds by code or data attributes, track events, and control widget configuration.

A donor needs help

Find receipts, manage recurring gifts, prepare support details, and explain what the donor can do from the portal.

How to use these docs

Each section answers one kind of operating question:

  • Dashboard is for organization admins and staff. It explains setup, fundraising structure, finance, people, events, kiosks, roles, billing, and add-ons.
  • Kiosks is for the people managing physical donation devices. It covers setup, day-to-day operation, offline behavior, and troubleshooting.
  • Events is for teams selling tickets or collecting registrations. It covers publishing, ticket design, form questions, check-in, reporting, refunds, and cancellations.
  • Widgets is for non-developer website work. It explains what can be copied from the dashboard and where each embed belongs.
  • SDK is for developers. It documents the real browser global, method names, configuration fields, and auto-mount attributes.
  • Support is for donor-facing help. It gives staff a consistent way to explain receipts, recurring donations, and support escalation.
Money-related behavior follows the current codebase: Stripe Connect connected accounts, plan-based Givebear application fees, and explicit refund and dispute summaries. Do not use older draft docs that mention a flat 2.5% fee.

Common paths

To accept the first online donation, complete onboarding, connect Stripe, choose a plan, create a fund, test the public giving page, then share the organization or fund link.

To replace scattered spreadsheets, start with Contacts, Tags, Segments, Tasks, and Activity. Use email campaigns only after contact records are clean enough to target.

To run an event, create the event shell first, then decide ticket types, registration questions, refund policy, check-in staffing, and post-event reporting.

To put Givebear on a website, use Widgets when a copied embed is enough. Use the SDK when a developer needs to control rendering, analytics, or configuration in code.

Web Dashboard

Use the dashboard to set up Givebear, structure fundraising, manage money, work with people, and administer the organization.

On this page

How to use these docsCommon paths