What's inside
Everything Aurora does
One list of the whole product, grouped by what you are trying to get done rather than by which screen it lives on. Almost all of it is on both plans. The one exception is PayPal, and it is marked where it appears.
Nothing on this page is planned, in beta or coming soon.
The part your supporters touch
A donation widget that shows specific things instead of a blank amount box, rendered inside the website you already have.
- Needs shown as cards with a photo, a price, and the person or program behind them
- Six at a time by default, reshuffled on every load so the cheap ones don't crowd out the rest
- The remainder stay reachable behind a “see more needs” button
- Any amount too, with the suggested amounts anchored on your own average gift
- Several needs from one initiative in a single basket, paid for together
- One-time, or an ongoing monthly sponsorship, chosen by the donor
- A donate-only mode for the weeks when you have nothing open
- Accent color, light or dark appearance, corner style and font — per widget, and overridable per page from the embed
- As many widgets as you like, each featuring different initiatives
- A compact layout built for a shop's cart page rather than a donate page
- An optional tax-deductible line carrying your EIN in the widget footer
- A volunteer sign-up link beside the needs, for the people who have time rather than money
A supporter reads “a $45 winter coat” and knows what their money buys. They read “Donate” and have to invent a number, which is the moment most of them close the tab.
Everything above is set from the dashboard and rendered by one line of markup on your own site. There is no theme to install and no platform to move to.
Where the money actually lands
Aurora is not a payment processor and never takes custody of a donation. Two processors, and the only difference that matters to a nonprofit choosing between them.
Stripe, on every plan
Card donations run on Stripe Checkout and settle into the Stripe account your organization connected, under your organization's name. Aurora's share comes off the gift as it settles, so there is no invoice to pay and no card of yours on file.PayPal, on every plan
PayPal giving is included on every plan, including the free one. Aurora takes no share of a PayPal donation at all — it settles straight into the nonprofit's own PayPal account. Aurora takes 0% of PayPal donations — PayPal's own rates apply.You decide which comes first
Connect both and you choose which checkout a donor is offered before the other. Donors never see a processor you have not connected.Nothing settles here
Stripe deposits to the bank account you connected. PayPal credits the balance you withdraw yourself. Neither account is Aurora's, which is also why there is no balance of yours for us to hold or release on the day you leave.
The rest of it
No group below is an upgrade and none of it is an add-on. If a line is on this page, it is on your account the day you sign up.
Needs and initiatives
How the work is organised.
- Initiatives group needs into programs, funds or campaigns
- A goal and a running count per need, so a need retires itself from the widget once it is met
- A photo per need, and a category photo standing in where you haven't uploaded one
- A shareable public page per need, with a link preview that survives being pasted into a group chat
- A wish-list link as a fallback, for the needs you'd rather were bought and shipped
- Locations, so a multi-site organization can say which building a need is for
Letting people ask
Your caseworkers, and the people you serve, without a login.
- A public request form on a link anyone can open
- Printable QR posters pointing at it, one per location
- A review queue: approve into a draft need, decline with a note, or mark it fulfilled
- Requests expire on a schedule you set, with one reminder before they do
- Where a requester gave an email address, it and their phone number are erased 30 days after the request closes
In-kind and drives
For the giving that isn't money.
- Let a donor bring the item instead of paying it, with a drop-off time you are told about
- Coordinated drives run with a business or a school, from request through approval and collection to delivery
- A public drive page where supporters reserve what they'll bring, so nobody duplicates
- Assembled kits as well as single items, with the contents of one kit written out
- Reservations that expire, so an item somebody forgot about goes back on the list
Reaching supporters
Getting the ask in front of people.
- A newsletter block built from your live needs, as email-safe HTML and a matching plain-text version
- Or send the issue from Aurora to the donors it has already recorded for you
- A caption and a square picture for a social post, written from a need
- Share links and printable QR codes for your giving page and for each widget
- Source tagging, so you can see which channel a gift arrived through
- Partner landing pages on their own address, for a business collecting on your behalf
Matching gifts
Employer matching, without you chasing it.
- Connect your own Double the Donation account with one public key
- Every receipt carries the donor a link to their own match page
- Only gifts made after you connect are ever included
Records and email
What you get back.
- Every checkout, newest first — a donor who funded three needs in one payment appears once
- A CSV of the lot, carrying the donor, the need, the initiative, the processor's own reference and the channel it came from
- Automatic receipts, and a separate thank-you naming what the gift funded
- Alerts for new donations, new requests, drive requests and reservations, failed payments and reached goals
- A weekly summary of the week's giving
- A Microsoft Teams webhook that posts your request decisions into a channel
Accounts and security
The unglamorous part.
- Two-factor sign-in — optional, then enforced on every session from the moment you enrol, with no second switch to remember
- Card details never reach Aurora — every payment happens on the processor's own checkout
- Your organization's records are isolated from every other organization's in the database itself, not only on the screens that show them
- One-click unsubscribe on every email that isn't a receipt
What it doesn't do
Shorter than the list above, and more useful. Better read now than found out in month two.
- It isn't a CRM. You get a record of every gift and an export of it, not a moves-management pipeline.
- It never holds your money, so there is no Aurora balance to release when you go.
- It doesn't import your mailing list. Aurora can email the donors it recorded for you, and nobody else.
- It has one login per organization today. There is no way to invite a colleague yet, and the alerts go to that one address.
- It doesn't post to social networks on your behalf — Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram don't permit it — so it hands you the picture and the caption and you press post.
- It doesn't claim a matching gift for your donor. That claim is theirs to make with their employer.
Put your first need in front of a donor
Create your account and build a widget for free. Free — Aurora takes nothing from any gift, and we ask your donors for an optional contribution instead — or $0.99 an update, with your donors never asked.