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Enabling PayPal and Venmo for your Giving Day site

Learn what information is required by Bonterra to enable PayPal and Venmo as payment methods for your Giving Day!

Katrina Grein-Topken avatar
Written by Katrina Grein-Topken
Updated over a month ago

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.

Requirements for using PayPal and Venmo

In order to enable PayPal and Venmo for your Giving Day, your organization must have a PayPal Business Account and be able to provide the live Client ID for that account. PayPal and Venmo are currently only available as payment methods for Giving Days that are Centrally Routed. This means that donations to all organizations or funds are routed to a single bank account.

Because Bonterra Giving Days does not have access to your organization's PayPal account, the Customer Success team is unable to provide in-depth troubleshooting for donation issues. Refunds for donations made via PayPal and Venmo will need to be processed directly by your team. If you do process refunds via PayPal or Venmo, reach out to our Customer Support team so that we can help ensure your reporting reflects this change.

If using PayPal and Venmo as payment methods has not already been discussed with your Relationship Manager and Project Manager, please let your designated Project Manager know so they can begin this process.

Providing your Client ID to your Project Manager

In order to enable PayPal and Venmo, your Project Manager will request from you the live Client ID from your PayPal Business Account. To learn how to access this information inside your PayPal Developer Dashboard, view the instructions here and read the notes below.

On step 2, ensure you switch the toggle to Live (see screenshot below). Providing the Client ID for the Sandbox app will not work and will delay the process of enabling PayPal and Venmo on your giving day site.

On step 4, make sure you name the REST API app something that will signify to you that this is being used for your giving day site. For example, "Give Big USA".

Once you have the Client ID for the live PayPal app, provide it to your Project Manager via Basecamp and continue to the next section below.

Enabling your PayPal Webhook

You must enable a webhook within your newly created REST API app in your PayPal Developer Dashboard in order for your PayPal/Venmo integration to work on your giving day site. To learn how to add a webhook to your REST API app, view the instructions here and read the notes below.

Make sure you are referring to the "To use the dashboard to subscribe to events" section of the instructions linked above.

Skip step 2 since you already have a REST API app.

For step 5, the URL is https://api.givegab.com/v1/paypal

For step 6, the events that you want to check are:

  • Checkout order approved

  • Payment capture completed

  • Payment capture denied

  • Payment capture refunded

  • Payment capture reversed

After step 7, you should be all set!

Once you have completed the instructions and notes above, you will see a notification that confirms that you have successfully completed setting up your PayPal.

Please take a screenshot of your PayPal Developer Dashboard that shows your configured webhook with the correct URL, Events Tracked, and the toggle at the top indicating that this is on your Live app. Send your Project Manager this screenshot via Basecamp as confirmation that your webhook is successfully set up!

If you encounter any issues or have questions, please contact your designated Project Manager!

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