Solved: Best way to manage a private event. - Page 2

sashakanno · ‎08-09-2024

Hi Community-

We are hosting a private event for our donors and are asking for a pledge / donation to attend. What's the best way to promote and organize this?

Should I create an event and send the link to donate in the invitation email? The event is being held at a private residence and they will receive the address with the pledge or donation.

We have done this event in the past but it was not that easy to track the pledges and donations to attendees.

Thanks in advance.

farmersash

MudFire_Dex · ‎08-14-2024

I like using Appointments because you can password protect the ability to sign up by embedding the link in a standard page (I am assuming that you are using Square online) and then the Appointment confirmation can give all of the address details, directions, etc and you can make an Appointment set to accept payment first so that you know the ticket is paid for. It would also be nice because it would make sure that those people are logged into your Customer's database for future marketing blasts/coupons/etc. They can set up an account and store a payment on file, etc.

If you sent an invite to your donor list - they could use the private page to pay the appointment fee (in your case the donation) and the details and directions sent out would then be private (we do our new member appointments this way since we have a wait-list and don't want folks to be setting appointments who weren't on the list first).

Require Appointment Prepayment

With Square Appointments, you can accept prepayment in full for all fixed price services when your clients book online.

To set up prepayments:

Visit Customers > Appointments > Settings > Payments and Cancellations in your online Square Appointments dashboard.
Select Require Prepayment.
Add your cancellation policy > click Save.

Once client prepayment is set up for online bookings, you can also save your client’s card on file to charge for appointments created from your online Square Appointments dashboard.

Note: The maximum transaction size for prepayment is $5,000.

Learn more about Customer Prepayment for Square Appointments.

Deklan (Dex) they/them]

MudFire CEO | Square enthusiast

Visit me at MudFire online

View Best Answer >

MudFire_Dex · ‎08-15-2024

We use an Acuity tie-in to manage our bookings so that people can manage their reservations to group classes held by multiple instructors - the Appointments feature for classes doesn't work well for us because of group led classes. I'm sure there are other event type sites that can offer a prettier more streamlined option if this is something you need to do often. Acuity has a nice plug in to use with Square - our deposits all run through Square and are so easy to track. App developers often make the flow with Square very easy and lots of apps give discounts to non-profit clients 🙂 I am sorry that this solution got clunky 😞

Deklan (Dex) they/them]

MudFire CEO | Square enthusiast

Visit me at MudFire online

sashakanno · ‎08-15-2024

I did a test with the Class as the option and I didn't like the look of it. I'm trying the appointment route but not loving that either but it might be the best option.

I can add it to our Square website. I put the address in the Form that people receive once they pay the $100 and reserve their spot.

Why did you suggest I create a separate page with a log in? I was thinking of adding to our existing Donate page.

Thoughts? Thanks!

farmersash