Anonymous donations and the public donations feed

Your campaign page includes a live donations feed — the scrolling list of recent gifts that builds momentum and social proof. Here's what it shows, and how anonymity works for donors who prefer privacy.

What the public feed shows

For every successful donation, the feed can display:

• The donor's name (or "Anonymous").
• The amount, in your campaign's currency.
• Any dedication message ("In honor of…").
• The team the gift was credited to. A multi-team split gift appears once in the main feed, with its full amount and no single team; on a team's own filtered feed it appears with that team's share.
• Matched gifts show their matched bonus (e.g. "+$100 matched").

Visitors can sort the feed by newest or largest, and search it by donor name, dedication, or team.

Only Approved donations appear. Pending and failed payments never show, and a refunded or charged-back donation drops out of the feed automatically.

Note for political campaigns: political campaign feeds show supporters without amounts, and sorting by amount is disabled — only names, messages, and teams appear publicly.

How a donor gives anonymously

At checkout, donors simply check "Make this donation anonymous" — with the hint "Hide my name from the public feed." The name field becomes optional ("You can leave this blank. If entered, it will not be shown publicly.").

You can also mark a donation anonymous when recording it manually, or via the Anonymous column in a spreadsheet import.

What anonymity hides — and what it doesn't

When a gift is anonymous:

• The public feed, team leaderboards, and live displays show "Anonymous" instead of a name.
• The dedication message is hidden on the public feed too — an "in honor of…" note usually reveals who gave, so it stays private along with the name.
• Public feed search will never surface the donor's name or their dedication text.
• The amount still shows (except on political campaigns) and still counts toward your total and team progress like any other gift.

What anonymity does not do:

• It does not hide the donor from you. Anonymity is purely a display mask: the donor's real name (if they entered one) is stored on the donation record, and your private Donations dashboard and exports show the true details. If the donor left the name blank, the record simply reads "Anonymous."

Anonymous donations and receipts

Anonymous donations do get an emailed receipt like any other gift — anonymity hides the name from the public, not from the donor's own inbox. As long as an email is on file, the receipt goes out automatically and you can use Resend Receipt at any time. Donors who create a Pledgix donor account can also see gifts made with their email address in their own donor portal.

Managing the feed

• Dedications are editable — if a donor asks you to fix or remove their public message, edit the donation and update the dedication text.
• Refunding a donation removes it from the feed immediately.
• The feed updates in real time as donations complete, including a brief toast notification on the page when a new gift lands.

Tip: Encourage dedications. Feeds full of "In memory of…" and "Go Team Rachel!" messages consistently out-raise silent ones — the feed is your campaign's social heartbeat.