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Mission Trips FAQ

This FAQ provides answers to common questions regarding mission trips, including donor anonymity, fundraising goals, and trip registration within the Platform.

Q1: Can a donor remain anonymous with respect to the trip participant knowing who made the donation?

Yes, edit the donation record in MinistryPlatform and set Anonymous to Yes.

Q2: What if one person exceeds their "total pledge" goal?

Pat them on the back! Consider lowering the "total pledge" goal of other mission trip participants.

Q3: What if a bunch of trip participants raise money together?

Consider having a fake pledge to a "General Trip Participant" donor with a $0 Total Pledge. When you credit that record with donations, then you can lower the total pledge of the trip participants who had a hand in the team-based fundraising event.

Q4: Can we track trip expenses in MinistryPlatform?

You can track trip expenses only if you create a custom page for this purpose and connect it to the Pledge Campaign record. Currently tracking trip expenses is outside of the scope of the standard MinistryPlatform implementation.

Q5: Is there any way to take a mission trip registration without requiring a deposit?

Yes, leave the Registration Deposit field on the Pledge Campaign record blank or with $0.

Q6: Is the Mission Trip Registration form set up in the system automatically, or do I need to set that up myself?

The Mission Trip Registration does not need a Custom Form to work, but you can incorporate a Custom Form to collect additional data.

Q7:How do I add a company record "Mission Team Support" to the pledge campaign so that donors can select it from the drop-down menu of mission trip participants and make a donation?

First, create a contact with the Add A Company Tool called something like General Trip Support. This tool also creates the donor record. Add a pledge assigned to that contact for your trip. Then, edit the beneficiary text in the pledge to control what displays.

Q8: I do not want a certain mission trip to be visible on the mission trip giving page. How can I do that?

If you want to take gifts online later, make the start date of the Pledge Campaign for that trip a future start date. If the trip is no longer taking online donations, make the end date of the Pledge Campaign for that trip a past end date. If you have a mission trip that you never want to display, even though it is currently accepting donations, then you may need to create a new Pledge Campaign Type. You may use something like "Internal Trip/Project", as only the existing "Mission Trip" pledge campaign type displays online.

Q9: My mission trip displays in the list as "open", but people cannot register. The message that displays is: "This Mission Trip does not currently allow online registration". Why is that?

Make sure you have a value set for Maximum Registrants in the Pledge Campaign. You also need to set a value for the Registration Deposit field. If you don't want a deposit, you can set this field value to 0.

Q10: What should I put into the Pledge record for Installment Amount and Installments Planned when I create a Mission Trip fundraising Pledge?

You can put $0 for the amount and 0 for the installments. These values are more important for pledges that are part of a capital campaign.

Q11: How do I remove the Mission Trip from the Mission Trip Registration page?

Make sure that the Mission Trip registration End Date is in the past.

Q12: How do I remove the Mission Trip from the Mission Trip Giving page?

Make sure that the End Date is in the past.

Q13: Does a person need to log in to register for a Mission Trip?

By default, the Mission Trip registration page does not require people to sign in to sign up. However, you can set it up to require a login, if needed. When someone signs up for the Mission Trip, MinistryPlatform adds them to the Event automatically as a Registered Participant. They will also have a Pending Pledge created in the Pledge Campaign.

Q14: Is there a way a staff member can see the progress of mission trip participants if they themselves don't participate in the trip?

Yes. Set the needed staff members up as Trip Leaders by creating a Pledge, setting their Pledge to $0 and Complete, and marking them as the leader. Then, they can log in as themselves and see the overall progress and details for the trip.

Q15: Is there a way to give specific people access to mission trip balances in the Platform without giving them access to Contributions?

Yes, there a couple ways you can do this:

  • Create a filtered page for those specific people to access pledge campaigns or pledges of the mission trip type.
  • Create a security role that grants rights to the mission trip reports on the Events page.