Frequently asked questions

Most communities are live in well under an hour. You create an account, name your giving page and funds, connect your payment account, and go live. The only step with an external wait is identity verification by the payment processor, which is usually quick.

No. The onboarding wizard walks you through each step, and your giving page works out of the box on any device. If you have a website, you can add a link or button, no code required.

Yes. Invite teammates from your dashboard and give each the right role, for example, finance staff who can issue refunds, or volunteers with read-only access. You can change or remove access at any time.

No, and this is the heart of how Givana works.Gifts are processed into your community's own connected Stripe account and paid out to its bank account on its Stripe payout schedule. Givana is the software and the records; we never take custody of your funds.

Payouts follow your payment processor's schedule into your linked bank account, commonly every couple of business days once your account is fully verified. Your dashboard shows payout history and status as it syncs.

Major credit and debit cards, plus the wallets your processor supports (for example Apple Pay and Google Pay) on supported devices. The checkout adapts to what each donor's device offers.

A simple, transparent platform fee shown in full on our Pricing page, plus your payment processor's own per-transaction fee. No setup fees, no lock-in.

Yes, if your community chooses it. In Settings you decide who pays the fees: your community, or your givers. When givers pay, a small amount covering processing and the platform fee is added to each gift, so your community receives the full intended gift. The giver sees the exact total before they continue.

Yes. An emailed receipt is sent automatically after each successful gift, with your community's name and the fund. Receipts are designed to be clear and keepable for the donor's records.

Yes. On the giving page, givers choose “Give regularly”, then how often (weekly, fortnightly, every 4 weeks, monthly or yearly) and the date of the first gift, for example the day after payday. In the UK they can pay by card or Direct Debit. Each gift gets its own receipt, and Gift Aid can cover every one of them.

Every receipt has a “Manage giving” link. It opens a page where they can change the amount, the date or the fund, update their card or bank details, pause for a few payments, or stop. No account or password is needed: if the link has expired, they can ask for a new one on the same page.

Stripe charges 1% for a UK Direct Debit (at least 20p and at most £4) against 1.5% + 20p for a card, so a regular gift loses less to fees. The first Direct Debit takes about 7 working days to arrive, and later ones about 4. Stripe emails the giver before each payment, as Direct Debit rules require.

Donors can choose not to display their name publicly. Your community still keeps the record it needs for reconciliation and receipts, handled per our Privacy Policy.

Refunds go through Givana. A community requests one from its dashboard (and givers ask Givana, not the community); Givana reviews it and issues it through Stripe. A refund returns the gift only, because fees are non-refundable. It reaches the giver's payment method, usually within 5–10 business days. The full details are in our Refund Policy.

Card details are handled by our PCI-compliant payment processor and never touch Givana's own servers. We see the records of a gift, not the raw card number.

Only your authorised team, scoped by role. Givana is multi-tenant by design: one community can never see another's donors. More on our Security page and in the Privacy Policy.

Always. Export donations, donors, and statements whenever you like. Your records are yours. We won't hold them hostage.

Yes. There's no lock-in. You can close your account whenever you choose and export your data first. See the Terms of Service for what happens to records afterward.

You can organise giving into multiple funds within your page, and we're expanding multi-page and multi-campaign support. Talk to us about your setup and we'll point you to the right approach.