Making a gift

Every gift on Homeward starts in the Donate window. It walks you through two steps — build your gift, then pay — and finishes with a receipt summary.

Where the Donate window opens from

The Donate button in the site header.
The Support button on any person or organization profile.
The Give to this fund button on a fund or fundraiser page, which opens the window already aimed at that fund.
Make a donation on the Giving overview.
New recurring gift on the Scheduled & Recurring page.

You can browse recipients while signed out, but you sign in to pay. If you open the window from a specific profile, it opens in single-recipient mode with that recipient already in the cart; from the header you start with a search.

Step 1 — Build your gift

Search for organizations or people, or switch between the Organizations and Individuals tabs to browse. Adding a recipient marks the row green; click it again to remove them.

Some recipients appear dimmed with the line “Not yet able to receive donations”. That is not a display problem — the recipient cannot accept money yet, so the add button is disabled. See Why a public fund does not mean money can flow.

The right column is your cart. For each recipient you choose a fund and an amount.

Fund — Homeward resolves the recipient’s public giving fund automatically. If a recipient has no usable fund you will see “No public funds found” and cannot add them.
Amount — each allocation must be at least $5, and the error message says so if it is not.
Add a staff member — from an organization’s own page, + Add a staff member to support opens a picker of that organization’s staff, so you can support a person directly rather than the organization.

Once your subtotal is above zero, a frequency control appears: Once, Monthly, or Quarterly. The default is Once.

Continue stays disabled until every amount is at least $5 and every fund has resolved.

Step 2 — Pay

The Review your donation card lists the frequency, each recipient with its fund and amount, and the subtotal. Two checkboxes sit beneath it:

Give anonymously — recipients will not see your profile name or contact details. It starts pre-checked if your Wallet default says so.
Cover transaction fees — adds $x.xx (2.9% + $0.30) so 100% of your donation reaches the recipients. Also pre-filled from your Wallet defaults.

Under Payment method you pick a saved card, or choose Use a card without saving it, where card details go directly to Stripe and are never saved to your Homeward wallet. That option has two limits: it is unavailable for recurring gifts, which need a saved card, and it works for a single gift at a time, so multi-gift carts need a saved card. If your wallet is empty you land on this option automatically.

Select the card, then Complete donation.

The success screen

A normal gift shows “Thank you” with the amount and frequency, and tells you a receipt is on its way by email. The Receipt Summary box lists each recipient and amount, fee coverage if you chose it, and the total.

If the payment is still confirming, the message says so and your receipt follows by email once the payment settles.

If something goes wrong

Errors appear in an alert box above the payment button, and each one means something specific:

“A minimum $5 allocation is required.” — one of your amounts is below $5.
“Please select a payment method.” — no card is chosen.
“Recurring gifts need a saved card…” — switch to a one-time gift, or save the card in your Wallet first.
“Paying without saving a card works for a single gift at a time…” — your cart has more than one recipient; use a saved card.
“One of your selected recipients is no longer accepting donations…” — remove that recipient from the cart and try again.
“No public funds found for <name>. Can’t process this donation.” — the recipient has no usable fund; contact them or Homeward support.
“Payment failed.” / “Payment was declined.” — nothing was charged. Try another card.

Scheduled and recurring gifts covers what happens after you choose Monthly or Quarterly. Donation history, receipts, and annual statements covers receipts. Wallet — cards, addresses, and giving defaults explains where the pre-filled defaults come from.