DONATE Team Challenges
Run a team fundraising challenge
Supporters fundraise together as a team, and every member gets their own page and link to share with their sponsors. You can charge an entry fee, which is never Gift Aided, and ask entrants to raise a minimum.
- Every member gets their own page, short link and QR code
- Teams with captains who run them from their DONATE account
- Team and member targets and totals
- Sponsorship that can carry Gift Aid
- Entry fees and places, with a sign-up form
- A minimum to raise, with reminders DONATE sends for you
- Join requests you approve, or let people straight in
- Supporters can suggest their own challenges
- Email the whole team from the portal
Updated
How it works
Team challenges live under Challenges in your DONATE portal. Each challenge is a team, such as a group running a Santa Dash, that raises money for one of your campaigns. Every member gets their own page and link, and what they raise counts towards the team and the campaign.
A team challenge in six steps
- Create the challenge: choose its campaign, then add the date, target and team logistics.
- Choose how people join: by invitation, by asking, or by signing up for an entry with a fee and, if you like, a minimum to raise.
- Add the people you already know are taking part, and pick a captain.
- Try it in Preview, then publish the campaign. Its challenges go live with it.
- Members share their own links. Approve join requests and keep the team informed.
- Afterwards, see each member's total against any minimum, and every payment. The money comes in your usual DONATE payouts.
What supporters see
Supporters need no account to sponsor anyone. They find a team from your campaign page, or go straight to a member's personal link.
Pages and totals
- A donation through a member's link is credited to that member, and counts towards the team and the campaign.
- The team page adds Gift Aid to its total, and any match funding on the whole campaign. The campaign page shows each team's total without them.
- A member's entry fee, and any difference they pay to meet a minimum, count towards their total, the team and the campaign. Neither is a donation or Gift Aided, and the page shows it under the bar, such as "Includes £15 entry fee".
- Sponsors can refund their own one-off gift until it is in a payout, by logging in at easydonate.org/login with the email they gave. See Fees and refunds.
- Members you add start as Internal. Choose Public in Edit member to list them under Taking part.
Teams on your campaign
The campaign page lists every team with its total, so supporters can choose one to sponsor or join.
The team's own page
Everyone taking part against their own target, with any entry fee in it, then the team total and the entry fees it includes.
A page for every member
A member's page shows why they are fundraising and their team. Sponsor Holly credits the gift to Holly.
Create the challenge
Every challenge raises for one of your campaigns, so make the campaign first, such as Santa Dash 2026. Then click New team challenge on the Challenges page for each team taking part.
Before you add anyone
- Give each team a challenge name supporters will recognise, such as Jingle Belles 5k. The team name shows at the top of the team's page.
- Team logistics, such as the meeting point, are emailed to members and never shown on the public page.
- The end date is a label. Donations are still accepted after it.
- Add a cover image and a route or venue map beside the details. Both show on the team page, the map as Route map, and the map is also in each new member's welcome email.
Choose the campaign first
Pick the campaign the challenge raises for. Campaigns that are not published yet are marked Not live.
Dates, target and logistics
Set Starts and Ends and the Fundraising target. Team logistics go to members by email only.
Choose how people join
You can add everyone yourself, let people ask to join, or let them sign up for an entry. Set it under Joining and Entries on the challenge's Settings tab. Entries are there for every organisation that runs team challenges.
Joining
- Allow people to request to join adds Join the challenge to the team page. With Approval not required they are let straight in; without it, you approve each one.
- Entries set what people pay to take part and the sponsorship target they start with. Each entry has an Entry fee (0 for free), a Sponsorship target, People per entry and Entries available, and can ask for a Minimum to raise.
- With entries, Join the challenge (Join on a phone) opens a sign-up in four steps, Entry, You, Your page and Pay. With no entries, people join free, and you approve them unless Approval not required is on.
- The sign-up holds the place before anyone pays. When an entry is full, it says so, and nobody pays for it.
- Registration, under Entries, sets what entrants are asked when they sign up.
A minimum to raise
- Minimum to raise asks each entrant to raise at least that much by the Raise it by date, or pay the difference themselves. Leave the date empty and it is 4 weeks after the challenge ends.
- Entrants agree at sign-up, under Your minimum, for example "I agree to raise at least £75 by 3 January 2027, or pay the difference myself." They cannot sign up without ticking it.
- Their entry fee counts towards the minimum, with every donation to their page.
- Only the person who signs up agrees. On a family entry with a page each, the others have no minimum.
- What they agree is fixed at sign-up. A new minimum or date applies to new entrants only.
Entry fees and Gift Aid
- An entry fee buys a place. It is not a donation and is never Gift Aided, but it counts towards the entrant's total, their minimum, the team and the campaign.
- Sponsorship given to members is a donation. Supporters can add Gift Aid when they get nothing back for it. DONATE claims it and pays it to you with your payout. Do not claim Gift Aid on these payments yourself as well.
- Charities get the Gift Aid with their payout, less 40 per cent. For a company raising for charities, its charities get it. Other organisations, such as clubs and schools, do not get it: DONATE keeps all of it as the fee.
- The sign-up lets entrants start their own page with a gift, and offers Gift Aid on it. Gift Aid is only right on a true gift, never on money towards their own place or costs, or a minimum they must raise.
Set joining and entries
Switch on Allow people to request to join. Each entry has its fee, sponsorship target, places and any minimum to raise.
Signing up for an entry
Each entry shows its fee, its target and the minimum to raise by its date. The page says the fee cannot have Gift Aid.
Agreeing to the minimum
Under Before you sign up, the entrant ticks Your minimum. Without the tick they cannot sign up.
Add your team
Add the people you already know are taking part. The first person you add becomes the team captain.
Members and captains
- Send an email invitation they accept themselves, or add them straight away. Either way, each member gets their own page and short link.
- A captain manages the team from their own DONATE account, where they are shown as Admin. They need no portal access. Make someone captain from Edit member.
- Edit member also sets a personal fundraising target, Public or Internal, and a short bio for their page.
- Upload photo, in the member's menu, is there until the member first logs in.
Invite or add members
Type a name and email, then send an invitation or add them straight away with a welcome email.
Members share their links
In their DONATE account, members share the team's Group Link or their own personal link, each with a QR code.
Go live
A new challenge is switched on from the start, but nobody can see it until its campaign is live. Try it in Preview, then publish the campaign.
Preview
- While a campaign has never been published, its challenges run in Preview. Some screens call it Rehearsal mode.
- In Preview, people who join from the team page pay nothing and get no email. They are removed when the campaign is first published.
- Members you add, approve or email from the portal do get real emails, even in Preview.
- Preview ends for good once the campaign has gone live, even if you take it off live later.
Going live
- Publish the campaign from its own Live switch and tick Before you publish. Its challenges go live with it.
- Each challenge has its own Live switch too. Off, its page takes no new members or donations, and members and money already in stay.
- Do not use a challenge's switch to put a campaign live. It publishes the campaign without the Before you publish ticks.
- The campaign's QR code is safe to print before you publish. It shows "opens soon" until then.
Preview and print early
A campaign that has never been published has a Preview button. Its QR code is safe to print now.
Publish the campaign
Switch the campaign Live and tick each box in Before you publish. Its challenges go live with it.
During the challenge
Approve join requests, keep the team informed and look after members from the challenge's Members tab.
Keeping the team going
- The Members tab shows how many requests are waiting. Approving someone sends them a welcome email with the team logistics and route map.
- Notify team emails your saved team logistics to every member who has joined. Save the logistics first.
- Click the arrow next to a member to see every donation credited to them, with its Gift Aid.
- To refund an entry fee, see Fees and refunds.
Approve people asking to join
Join requests wait at the top of the Members tab, with Approve and Decline for each.
Look after each member
Each member's total, donations and any join fee, and a menu to edit, refund the fee or remove them.
Follow up the minimum
When an entry has a minimum to raise, the challenge's Fundraising tab shows where each member stands, and DONATE sends the reminders for you. DONATE never charges anyone without their say.
The Fundraising tab
- Raised at the top is entry fees, donations and what members paid to meet their minimum. Gift Aid is not included.
- Each member shows Entry fee, Minimum and its date, Donations, Paid by them, Outstanding and Last reminder. Outstanding is what is left to reach the minimum.
- Statuses: On track until the date, Reached, Short once the date has passed with money left to raise, Paid difference, Settled, Waived, and No minimum.
- Filter by Short or Outstanding, and click Download CSV for the list.
Emails DONATE sends
- 4 weeks and 1 week before the date, a member who has not reached their minimum gets their progress, such as "£45 of £75 raised, 1 week to go".
- The day after the date, a member still short gets "Pay the £30 difference for Santa Dash 5k", with a secure link to pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or PayPal. Reminders follow 7 and 14 days later, then the emails stop.
- The difference they pay counts towards their total, the team and the campaign. It is never Gift Aided and is not listed publicly as a donation.
- No more emails go once a member reaches the minimum or pays the difference, or you settle or waive it.
What you can do
- Send reminder now sends the right email at once, their progress before the date or the payment link after it. Once an hour at most.
- Mark settled: they sorted the difference with you another way. Waive: they will not be asked to pay. Both stop the reminders, and you can add a note.
- Reopen undoes Mark settled or Waive.
Each member against their minimum
Every member's status and figures, the Short and Outstanding filters, Download CSV, and a menu to remind, settle or waive.
Challenges suggested by supporters
Supporters can suggest their own challenge for a campaign, such as a Christmas Day dip. Nothing they suggest is public until you approve it.
Suggestions
- Let supporters suggest their own challenges, in the Challenges section of the campaign, adds Start a fundraiser to a campaign page that lists its teams.
- A suggestion shows Awaiting approval in your Challenges list and pending on its own page.
- Approving a suggestion also publishes its campaign if it is not live, without the Before you publish ticks. Publish the campaign yourself first.
Approve or decline a suggestion
Approve challenge makes it public and lets the supporter start fundraising. Decline keeps it hidden.
After the challenge
See how the team did, then export the team list. The money comes to you through your usual DONATE payouts.
Results
- Raised in your portal includes entry fees and any difference members paid. On the Donations tab each payment that is not a donation is marked, such as Entry fee with the entry's name, and the line above the list adds them up by type.
- Your Donations page has a Type column and filter, with Donation, Entry fee, Entry deposit, Minimum shortfall, Ticket, Raffle ticket, Vote and Auction.
- Export on the Members tab downloads each member's email, role, status, amount raised, donations and personal target.
- On the campaign's Donations tab, filter by challenge or by team member to compare teams.
- Deleting a challenge removes it from your public pages. Donations already made are kept.
The team's donations
A chart and every payment to the team, with entry fees marked Entry fee and totals by type above the list.
Fees and refunds
There are no setup fees. Fees come off each payment. For Gift Aid, see Choose how people join.
Fees
- Charities, and companies raising for charities: 4.5 per cent plus 22p on a donation without Gift Aid. When the supporter adds Gift Aid there is no percentage fee: you keep the whole donation less 22p, plus 60 per cent of the Gift Aid, and our fee is the other 40 per cent.
- Other organisations: 5 per cent plus 22p; when the supporter adds Gift Aid, DONATE claims it and keeps all of it as the fee instead of the 5 per cent.
- Entry fees, and the difference a member pays to meet a minimum, never carry Gift Aid, so they cost the rate without Gift Aid.
- Charges on each payout: a usage fee of £3 for each week (Monday to Sunday) in which your organisation receives £10 or more (at most £12 a month), and a transfer charge of £7.50 plus 0.5 per cent of the payout for charities and companies raising for charities, or 1.5 per cent for other organisations (at least £3 either way).
Refunds of sponsorship
- Sponsors refund their own gift by logging in at easydonate.org/login with the email they gave and opening Donations, while it is not yet in a payout to you. This works for a one-off gift by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Direct Debit. The whole payment goes back, including any tip, and Gift Aid is not claimed on it.
- DONATE emails the sponsor "Your refund of £20.00 to Oroojo", with your name in place of Oroojo. Your organisation is not emailed.
- Text gifts are never refunded. For a monthly gift or a PayPal payment not yet in a payout, email hello@nationalfundingscheme.org and DONATE refunds it.
- Once the gift is in a payout, the sponsor sees "This payment has been passed to Oroojo. Ask them about a refund." DONATE cannot refund it then, so you refund them yourself.
Refunds of entry fees
- Entrants cannot refund their own entry fee, a gift they made to their own page as they signed up, or a difference they paid. They ask you. For that gift or a difference not yet in a payout, email hello@nationalfundingscheme.org and DONATE refunds it.
- Refund join fee is in the menu of a member who paid a fee, on the Members tab. Declining a request that came with a fee refunds it too.
- Once a fee is in a payout to you, DONATE does not refund it. Refund join fee then says so, and you refund the entrant yourself.
- Declining does not tell you whether the fee went back. Check the member's row, where a refunded fee shows (refunded).
- If the entrant also gave to their own page in the same payment, only the fee is refunded. The donation stays.
- Remove from challenge never refunds a member who has joined. On a family entry, Refund join fee works only once nobody else on it is still taking part.
Settings reference
Settings, Challenge details
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Challenge name | Shown on the team page and the campaign page. Up to 150 characters. | Required |
| Team name | Shown at the top of the team page. Your portal falls back to the challenge name when it is empty. | Empty |
| Description | What the challenge is and why it matters. Shown on the team page. | Empty |
| Starts and Ends | Shown on the team page. After the end date donations are still accepted. | Empty |
| Fundraising target | The team's target, shown on the team page. | 0 |
| Team logistics | Meeting point, what to bring and timings. Emailed to members, never shown on the public page. | Empty |
| Cover image | Shown on the team page. JPG or PNG, 5MB at most. | None |
| Route / venue map | Shown on the team page as Route map, and in each new member's welcome email. Not in Notify team. 10MB at most. | None |
| Live | Off, the page takes no new members or donations. Switching it on also puts a campaign that is not live live. | On |
Settings, Joining and Entries
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Allow people to request to join | Shows Join the challenge on the team page. | Off |
| Approval not required | People who ask to join are let straight in. Off means you approve each one. | Off |
| Entries | What people pay to take part, the sponsorship target they start with, People per entry, Entries available, and any minimum to raise. Entry fees are never Gift Aided. | None: anyone can join free |
| Minimum to raise | What each entrant agrees to raise by the date, or pay the difference themselves. Their entry fee counts towards it. | Empty: no minimum |
| Raise it by | The date for the minimum. | 4 weeks after the challenge ends |
| Registration | What entrants are asked when they sign up, and the Registration link. | All off |
Members
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| How should they join | Send an email invitation they accept, or add them straight away with a welcome email. | Email invitation |
| Role | Captain manages the team from their DONATE account, where it is shown as Admin. The first member added is captain. | Team member |
| Personal fundraising target | Shown on the member's page and included in the Export. | 0 |
| Profile visibility | Public lists the member on the team page. Internal hides them. Members you add start as Internal. | Internal when you add them |
| Bio or note | Shown on the member's own page. | Empty |
Emails DONATE sends for you
| When | Who gets it | |
|---|---|---|
| Invitation | When you add a member with an email invitation, or click Resend invitation. | The member |
| Welcome | When you add a member straight away, approve a request, or someone joins a team that needs no approval. Includes the team logistics and route map. | The member |
| Join request | When someone asks to join a team that needs approval. | Team captains, and a browser alert to your portal users |
| Team update | When you click Notify team. Includes the team logistics. | Every member who has joined |
| Minimum progress | 4 weeks and 1 week before the Raise it by date, while the minimum is not reached. | The member who agreed to it |
| Pay the difference | The day after the date, while they are short, with a secure link to pay. | The member who agreed to it |
| Minimum reminder | 7 and 14 days after that, while they are still short. | The member who agreed to it |
| Thank you for the difference | When they pay it. | The member who paid |
| In Preview | People who join from the team page get no email. Members you add, approve or email from the portal do. |
Questions
- How are Team challenges different from Events?
- Team challenges are team focused: supporters fundraise together, and each member gets their own page and link. Events sell tickets to a dinner, show or open day, with a QR code scanned at the door.
- How do I set up a team fundraising challenge?
- In your DONATE portal, click Challenges, then New team challenge. Choose the campaign it raises for and give it a name, then add the date, joining rules and members on the challenge's own page.
- Does every team member get their own fundraising page?
- Yes. Every member has their own page and personal link, with a QR code. Donations through their link are credited to them and count towards the team and the campaign.
- Can we charge an entry fee to join a team?
- Yes, with Entries on the challenge's Settings tab: a fee, a sponsorship target, how many places and, if you like, a minimum to raise. Every organisation that runs team challenges has them.
- Can we claim Gift Aid on an entry fee?
- No. An entry fee buys a place, so it is never Gift Aided. Sponsorship from supporters who get nothing back can carry Gift Aid, but not money entrants put towards their own place or costs.
- Do entry fees count towards our fundraising total?
- Yes. An entry fee counts towards the entrant's total, their minimum, the team and the campaign, and shows under their bar, such as "Includes £15 entry fee". It is never a donation and never Gift Aided.
- Can we ask entrants to raise a minimum?
- Yes. Give the entry a Minimum to raise and, if you like, a Raise it by date, 4 weeks after the challenge by default. Entrants agree to it at sign-up, DONATE emails them before and after the date, and anyone short can pay the difference online. Follow it on the Fundraising tab.
- What if an entrant does not reach their minimum?
- The day after the date they get a link to pay the difference, then reminders 7 and 14 days later. After that, send a reminder yourself, mark them settled if they paid you another way, or waive it. DONATE never charges them without their say.
- How do I refund an entry fee?
- On the Members tab, click the three dots on the member and choose Refund join fee. Once the fee is in a payout to you, DONATE cannot refund it, so refund the entrant yourself. See Fees and refunds.
- A sponsor wants their money back. What happens?
- Until the gift is in a payout to you, they refund a one-off gift themselves at easydonate.org/login, under Donations. For a monthly or PayPal gift not yet in a payout, email hello@nationalfundingscheme.org. After that, you refund them yourself. Text gifts are never refunded.
- Can supporters set up their own challenge for us?
- Supporters can suggest one, and it waits for your approval. Approving it also publishes its campaign if it is not live, so publish the campaign yourself first.
- Do team captains need access to our portal?
- No. Make a member Captain and they manage the team from their own DONATE account.
- How do I send the team the meeting point and timings?
- Type them in Team logistics and save. New members get them in their welcome email. To update everyone, click Notify team on the Members tab.
- Can I try a team challenge before it goes live?
- Yes. While its campaign has never been published, it runs in Preview. Click Preview on the campaign to try joining and giving. See Go live for what Preview does and does not send.
- How do I make a team challenge live?
- Publish the campaign it raises for, from the campaign's own Live switch. Its challenges go live with it.
- What happens when the challenge end date passes?
- Nothing stops. Donations are still accepted, so late sponsorship still reaches you.
- How do I see how much each team member has raised?
- Open the challenge and click Members. Each member shows their total and number of donations. Click the arrow next to a member to see each donation, or click Export for a CSV.
- How much does it cost to run a team challenge?
- { "Nothing to set up": { " Charities, and companies raising for charities, pay 4": { "5 per cent plus 22p on a donation without Gift Aid": { " When the supporter adds Gift Aid there is no percentage fee": "you keep the whole donation less 22p, plus 60 per cent of the Gift Aid, and our fee is the other 40 per cent. Other organisations pay 5 per cent plus 22p; when the supporter adds Gift Aid, DONATE keeps all of it as the fee instead of the 5 per cent. Payouts carry the charges in Fees and refunds." } } } }