Note: This article is written for Giving Day hosts. If you are a participant or supporter of a Giving Day, this article may not pertain to your efforts.
As an administrator, you are responsible for DNS management and coordination with the GiveGab team to ensure the necessary DNS records are in place. You will retain ownership of your domain.
If you are a returning Giving Day participant, as long as the DNS record below has not been removed since your last event, we should be able to move forward without the changes described below. If you are unsure, please have your Project Manager confirm with the GiveGab tech team.
Step 1: Purchase a domain
It is your responsibility to purchase and maintain the domain that hosts your Giving Day site. A site domain, or domain name, is the "address" of a website. It is what you type into a web browser to find and visit a specific site, such as "google.com". For example, you could purchase "coloradogiving.com", which is where visitors will navigate to view your Giving Day site.
There are various places where you can purchase a site domain. One example is godaddy.com. Once purchased, share the domain name with your Project Manager.
Step 2: Set up a CNAME
Before your site’s “go-live” date, you will “point” the domain to the site you build within GiveGab by setting up a CNAME. A CNAME (Canonical Name) record in DNS is a type of record that maps one domain name to another.
To update a CNAME record, log in to your domain provider's (e.g. godaddy) Control Panel and navigate to the DNS settings. From there, you can edit the CNAME record.
Add the following DNS record: a CNAME for the desired domain pointing to "givegab.map.fastly.net".
Here is an example of what this may look like in your domain provider’s control panel:
Enter the following values:
Type: CNAME
Name: www
Value: givegab.map.fastly.net
TTL: suggest leaving this as the default, typically an hour
Step 3: Confirm setup with your Project Manager
Confirm with your Project Manager that you have completed the above steps so they can verify everything has been set up properly.
Please ensure your Project Manager has an up-to-date point of contact with access to your site’s DNS records before your Giving Day event.