Setting up a Mission Trip Involvement

Each mission trip will use an Involvement just as you would for any other online registration. However, mission trips have some very important aspects and settings that need to be set in order for every aspect to work properly.

Caution

We always recommend reusing Involvements that are for the same purpose. That applies to mission trip orgs as well. If you are going to the same location, use the previous org. Just be sure that you perform these tasks at the end of the mission trip:

  • Drop all Members.

  • Drop all Senders.

  • Make the org Inactive.

Then when you reopen that org to use it for the next trip, just make the necessary changes for the fees, GL Code, etc.

See note below regarding enrollment dates and donations.

Important

If you have not set up an Involvement for online registration, you will want to read more about online registration settings. Just bear in mind that there are replacement codes and special settings that are specific only to Mission Trip type of registrations. So play close attention to the information below.

Warning

Mission Trip Involvements should not have Master Involvements. The following steps must be followed in order for the Mission Trip process to function as designed.

Set Up the Involvement

Step 1

Create an Involvement for the mission trip or use an existing Involvement. If using an existing org, make sure that you make it Active, if it was Inactive.

Step 2

Change the following Settings on the Involvement:

Settings > General
  • Check the box for Mission Trip.

  • If your church does not want to allow credit cards, check the No Credit Cards box.

Note

If you want to enable Goer Funding Pages for trip participants, check the box for Enable Funding Pages.

Settings > Attendance
  • Check the box for Off Site Trip to take advantage of the attendance features for Involvement members who are off site during a meeting of an Involvement in which they are enrolled.

  • Select the First Meeting Date and the Last Meeting Date These are the actual dates of the trip, and are necessary in order for the Off Site Trip functionality regarding attendance to work.

Settings > Extra Values
  • You may optionally add an Ad Hoc Extra Value that will allow your trip participants to continue to solicit donations, even after they have reached their goal. Follow these steps to enable this optional feature:

  • Click Show Adhoc Values and then Add/Update Extra Value.

  • Select Checkbox as the Type, enter the Name RaiseBeyondRequired, and then check the box next to Checkbox Value.

  • Save.

  • Now, the participants will be able to continue to solicit financial support once they have raised their target amount.

    Tip

    If you want ALL mission trip involvements to allow trip participants to raise beyond their required amount, there is an optional Administrative Setting. You can find the Missions: Raise Beyond Required setting under Administration > Settings > Features > Registrations. Setting this to True allows the goer to raise more than their required amount. Setting this to False will allow each goer to raise only what is required.

Registration > Registration
  • Select Join Involvement as the Registration Type.

  • Enter a Max Limit if the trip has a maximum number of participants.

  • Set other settings on this tab as needed.

Registration > Fees
  • Enter the total dollar amount of the trip as the Fee (no punctuation- ex. 2500).

  • Enter the dollar amount of the Deposit (again, no punctuation).

  • Enter the Contribution Fund ID (for contribution credit) in the Donation Fund Id field.

  • Enter the Accounting Code (from your general ledger) if you want that to display on the Transaction Log (and reports) in TouchPoint.

Note

If you enter a non-existent fund ID, TouchPoint will actually use an existing fund instead of presenting your registrants with an error. The Activity Log will indicate which fund was used.

Caution

Do not check Ask Donation as that setting will interfere with the other mission trip functions.

Registration > Questions
  • Select the drop downs, checkboxes, or other questions that you need answered for the person going on the trip.

    Example

    Here are some questions that are commonly used in mission trip registrations:

    • emergency contact

    • doctor

    • allergies

    • previous mission trip experience

    • beneficiary name (for trip insurance)

Registration > Messages > Confirmation Email
  • Create a Confirmation email and include a paylink replacement code for them to make subsequent payments.

  • Provide instructions so the Goer knows how to access their profile to see their balance, email supporters, and make a payment from their profile.

  • Select the appropriate user/s as the Online Notify Person to receive the notifications when someone registers. Be sure that the person listed first is the one you want as the sender of the confirmation.

Registration > Messages > Instructions
  • Enter any Instructions you think might be helpful for those registering.

    Example

    Using the Options Instructions, you may want to let the person know the amount of the deposit and that he will need his bank or credit card information in order to make the payment online.

Registration > Messages > Notify Persons/s for Gift
  • Select the Notify Person/s for Gift. This is for the notification that Supporters will receive when they make an online donation.

  • You will probably want this to come from someone in your finance office, so be sure to have that person’s name at the top.

  • You can have others receive the notification, too, such as an Admin Asst. in the mission’s ministry.

Registration > Messages > Support Email
  • Create the Support Email, making sure you enter a Subject. This is the email that the Goer will send to people he is asking for support.

  • Use the email replacement code {salutation} at the start of the email. Do not use Dear {first} as you would in a normal confirmation.

  • Click Source in the toolbar for the editor, and add this text just under the {salutation} replacement code: <div class="bvedit">. Click Source again to return to the normal view.

    Note

    This bit of code is necessary in order for Goers to be able to edit the body of the email before sending it to their supporters. Place it below the {salutation}, so they will not edit that.

  • Be sure to clearly indicate the name of the church, church website address and include an {unsubscribe} link somewhere in the email.

  • You can use the {track} replacement code, but do NOT use {tracklinks} as that does not work when you have the supportlink in the body of the email.

    Caution

    The Support Email is going to potential supporters, therefore, normal email replacements codes such as {amount} or {amtdue} will NOT work in this type of email. Those are designed to work when sent to the registrant. You can enter the actual amount of the trip in the Support Email, but do not use those email replacement codes.

  • Include some text such as “please click this link to make a donation online”, highlight the text, then click the gold link icon (or the Special Links button above the editor toolbar) and select Support Link from the drop down menu for the Type and then enter the Org id # for the Involvement.

    Note

    The Support Link takes the supporter to a page where he will click Send Link. This will send another link that takes him to the donation page. If the potential supporter was not found in the database, he will create a people record in the course of the transaction.

Registration > Messages > Sender Confirmation
  • Create the Sender Confirmation, which is the email that the supporter receives when he makes an online donation.

  • Use the replacement code {paid} to show the amount of the donation in the confirmation.

  • The email will come from the top user selected as the Notify Persons/s for Gift.

Step 3

Email a RegisterLink to those interested in the trip so they can register online.

Misc Info

There are several things that happen automatically when an Involvement is flagged as a Mission Trip type of online registration. One is that the Allow Only One flag will get set, so that only one person can register at a time. In other words, a registrant will not be presented with the Add Other Registrations button. This is to keep the payments and the support from getting combined for multiple registrants. You do not have to set this flag, it will get set automatically when the Mission Trip flag is set. Do not remove that check mark for Allow Only One.

Note

If your church uses multiple payment gateways, Mission Trip and Support payments will process through the One-Time Giving gateway by default since they are considered tax-deductible. If you have a separate payment gateway for your Online Registrations and you would like to have your Mission Trip Involvements set to process payments using that gateway, you may toggle the setting called MissionTripInvUseOnlineRegGateway to True. This setting may be found by navigating to Administration > Setup > Settings > Features > Registrations.

The other thing that happens automatically is that each registrant will have a user account created at the time he completes his online registration. He will receive an email with a username and a link to set a password. This is so he can use the Email Support feature that is built in to Mission Trip types of registrations, and to track his balance for the trip. If he already has a user account, the email will let him know that and will give him his username in case he needs to reset his password.

Donations and Enrollment Dates

When you re-use Involvements and some of the same people register again just note that any donations made on their behalf will get posted to the current trip based on the person’s enrollment date. In other words, donations made after the enrollment date will get posted to the current trip. Any donations made prior to the person’s enrollment date will not be included in the current trip.



Latest Update

6/14/2022

Added information about the new Missions: Raise Beyond Required administrative setting.