Contributions, Data, and Compliance (Raise by ActBlue)

In this article:

1. View & Search Your Contributions
2. Refunds & Recurring Cancellations
3. Track your performance
4. View payout information
5. Download reports for compliance

View & search your contributions

Go to the Contributions tab to view a list of every contribution you’ve received through your fundraising page in chronological order. Each line item for a contribution lists the date, name and email, billing address, and amount. All recurring contributions will have a green “Recurring” badge and all contributions that have been refunded will have a “Refunded” badge.

There is also a dropdown labeled “Actions” you can expand to take action on that contribution.

Click “Actions” and then select “View details” to see more details about the contribution, such as the exact timestamp, the ActBlue order number (formatted AB#########), and the donor’s employment information.

You can use default filters to filter your contributions.

Filter by:

• Date range
• Refunded contributions
• Recurring contributions.

If you’d like to search for a specific contribution or contributions, click to expand “Additional filters.”

You can enter any of the following search criteria and click “Search” to pull up all matching contributions:

• Donor last name
• Donor first name
• Donor email address
• Donor phone number

Refunds & Recurring Cancellations

Raise allows your team to process refunds on your end, ensuring that you can handle simple donor relations issues right away. When working with refunds, please note that we can't guarantee a refund for contributions older than three months (90 days).

If you have a merchant account and receive payouts through Stripe, you can refund any contribution at any time as long as there are sufficient funds in your linked bank account. The funds will be withdrawn from your linked bank account.

If you have a conduit account and receive your payouts as checks or through direct deposit, you can issue a refund as long as the original contribution has not been paid out to you yet. The refund will be deducted from your next payout. If the contribution has already been paid out to you via check or direct deposit, please reach out to us for help. Our team handles all refund requests as promptly as possible!

To issue a refund to a donor, navigate to the Contributions tab of your Dashboard.

Pull up the contribution you need to refund. Then click “Actions” to expand the dropdown menu and click “Refund.”

This will open a pop-up where you can see the details of the refund. There will be a dropdown to enter the reason for the refund and a button labeled “Refund.”

Choose the appropriate reason for the refund, such as “Wrong Amount” if the donor made a mistake or “Test Contribution” if this was a test contribution by your team. Then click “Refund.”

If the refund cannot be processed because we have already paid the contribution out to your team or because of an issue with the donor’s original payment method, a message will prompt you to contact our customer service team.

If the refund goes through successfully, the funds will automatically be deducted from either your merchant account’s linked bank account or from the pending funds that haven’t been paid out yet in your conduit account. When you view the contribution in the Contributions tab, the amount will be a pink, negative number, and the contribution will have a pink “Refunded” badge.

When an ActBlue contribution is refunded, the ActBlue processing fee for the original contribution will be credited to you and included in your next payout! Unfortunately, Stripe transaction fees for merchant accounts are non-refundable. Learn more about merchant account fees and reconciliation here.

Note that when you refund a recurring contribution, all future recurrences will automatically be canceled. If a donor would like to cancel or update a recurring contribution without being refunded, they can do so using one of our seamless self-service tools. Learn how donors can cancel and update their recurring contributions.

Track your performance

When you log into Raise, you’ll be taken straight to the Overview tab of your Dashboard. Your Overview tab is the homepage of your Dashboard. It provides a summary of your fundraising performance at a glance.

• Fundraising performance: The module at the top of the page displays at-a-glance performance metrics for the last week: the total funds raised, the number of individual donors who gave, and the average donation amount. You can also click the dropdown in the upper right-hand corner of the module to set a custom date range and see these same statistics.
• Recent contributions: This module displays the five most recent contributions you’ve received. Click on “View all →” to be brought to your Contributions tab where you can see contribution details and issue refunds.
• Payouts:
  • For conduit accounts, this module displays your pending funds that have yet to be paid out and the amount and date of your most recent payout. Click on “View all →” to be brought to your Payouts tab, where you can see more details.
  • For merchant accounts, this module provides information about when you can expect to see a donation hit your bank account and the Stripe payout schedule.

View payout information

The Payouts tab of your Dashboard is where you can see your pending funds and past payouts.

If you are fundraising with a merchant account, the Payouts tab will provide information about when you can expect to see a donation hit your bank account and the Stripe payout schedule. For more information about your merchant account payouts, please get in touch.

If you are fundraising with a conduit account (receiving checks or direct deposit), you will see the following information when you go to your Payouts tab.

Next pending payout: At the top of the page, you’ll see a module with information about the pending funds (donations you have raised that have not been paid out to you yet) currently in your account:

• The current number of contributions included in your net payout
• The current gross total of your next payout
• Total refunds deducted so far
• Total ActBlue service fees deducted so far
• The current net total of your next payout

Past payouts: You will also see a list of all of your past payouts. The line item for each past payout will include:

• The check or direct deposit number
• The date of the payout
• The number of contributions in that payout
• The gross total
• Total refunds deducted
• Total ActBlue service fees deducted
• The net total

Download reports for compliance

Disclaimer: Your campaign may need to file donor reports with government agencies to comply with state or local laws. We’re happy to show you how to access this data in Raise, but this is not legal advice.

For specific questions about filing reports, consult with your legal and compliance team, or direct questions to the government agency overseeing your activity and ask how to report contributions received through Raise.

For your compliance purposes, this support article explains why ActBlue is considered a PAC and how we function as a conduit for individual political contributions made through our platform.

When you download a report, it will come in the form of a CSV spreadsheet. CSVs are a universal document format that works with most spreadsheet programs, like Excel or Numbers, and with most donor-tracking software. The CSV will include a row of data for each individual contribution, which you can use for reporting and compliance purposes.

To download reports for compliance purposes, click on the Reporting tab of your Dashboard.

At the top of the page, you’ll see some information displayed about downloading reports. You can click on the “View more details here” link to see more information about the types of data that will be included in the spreadsheets you download.

You will also see the following modules:

• All contributions: Download a CSV that includes every contribution you’ve received since you began fundraising on Raise.
• Contributions by date: Set a custom date range and download a CSV that includes every contribution received during that period.

When you click “Download a CSV,” a green success banner confirming that the CSV is downloading will display. (For merchant accounts, there is a notice that payout data created in the last two days may not be available in Stripe.) When the CSV has finished downloading, a green success banner with a link to download the CSV will display. There will also be a list of recent downloads with a button to re-download the same file at the bottom of the page.

The CSV you download will include many columns, such as the date and timestamp (EST) of their contribution, the donor’s personal information, the amount of their contribution and associated fees, and more. Click on the “View more details here” link at the top of your Reporting tab to see a breakdown of the different columns that will be included in the spreadsheets you download.

If you are fundraising with a merchant account, you will also see a switch under “Contributions by date” titled “Settlement view”. Select this switch to pull a report sorted by merchant account payout date to assist with reconciliation.

For reconciliation purposes, the most important columns in this type of report are:

• Txn Amount (gross donation amount)
• Stripe Fee Amount
• ActBlue Fee Amount
• Net Settlement (the net amount deposited to your bank account).

Please note that Payout data created in the past two business days may not be available from Stripe.