Want to see how much social impact your app is driving? We have two reporting options for doing so.
Referred donors tracking and reporting
If you are referring (ie. linking) prospective donors to classroom projects on our site, our API can feed you the number of donors, projects, and students reached. These "impact stats" are updated dynamically and calculated in aggregate across your campaign.
This is done by associating all the donations you refer with a single campaign, which we do in our system by associating the donations with a Giving Page. When donations are associated with a Giving Page, donors will see the Giving Page referenced in check-out, in their donation receipt, and in other classroom correspondence.
To enable this tracking:
- Choose the Create Your Own option.
- Its title will be the public name of the campaign that donors will see referenced in check-out, etc so name it appropriately.
2. Once Giving Page setup is complete, get its unique ID from its public URL, eg. the Giving Page ID for https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/viewChallenge.html?id=254413 is 254413.
3. Append the parameter partnerId=<your Giving Page ID> to all your JSON requests, eg. https://api.donorschoose.org/common/json_feed.html?APIKey=[YOUR_API_KEY]&gradeType=4&subject2=-1&schoolType=1&partnerId=254413.
4. Our API will then append &challengeid=<your Giving Page ID> to the URLs our JSON feed supplies back to your app. That's how we'll credit any resulting donations to your Giving Page. (Giving Page and "challenge" are synonymous in our system.)
To confirm this is working right, look for the &challengeid=<your Giving Page ID> in your JSON responses, eg...
...
proposalURL: "https://www.donorschoose.org/project/new-music-stands-for-our-classroom/914329/?challengeid=254413&utm_source=api&utm_medium=feed&utm_content=bodylink&utm_campaign=DONORSCHOOSE",
fundURL: "https://secure.donorschoose.org/donors/givingCart.html?proposalid=914329&donationAmount=30&challengeid=254413&offpage=true&utm_source=api&utm_medium=feed&utm_content=fundlink&utm_campaign=DONORSCHOOSE",
...
5. We also recommend you append the parameters partnerId=<your Giving Page ID> and offpage=true to any DonorsChoose URLs you use to send a prospective donor to our site. This will ensure that if the donor supports a project other than the one to which you directly referred them, your campaign is still credited. For example...
proposalURL: "https://www.donorschoose.org/project/new-music-stands-for-our-classroom/914329/?challengeid=254413&utm_source=api&utm_medium=feed&utm_content=bodylink&utm_campaign=DONORSCHOOSE&offpage=true"
or
searchURL: "https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?subject2=-1&gradeType=4&partnerId=254413&schoolType=1&utm_source=api&utm_medium=feed&utm_content=searchlink&utm_campaign=DONORSCHOOSE&offpage=true",
or
https://www.donorschoose.org/?partnerId=254413&offpage=true
6. That's it! You can now use the API to pull in your campaign's "impact stats" and completed projects, as detailed at JSON impact stats, donation messages, and project listings for Giving Pages.
API transactions tracking and reporting
If you are using our API transactions to process donations in your app (ie. your users aren't clicking over to our site to make donations), our API can feed you the number of donors, projects, and students reached. These "impact stats" are updated dynamically and calculated in aggregate across your campaign.
Here's how it works: Even though each API donation is associated primarily with each donor's account, the donation also remains associated with your account that's backing all the transactions. This is the account we've associated with your API key and password, and from which we're drawing down your deposited "credits" to execute your API transactions. This account's "impact stats" are a roll-up of your entire campaign, representing all the donations the account has backed.
To enable this tracking:
1. Determine the unique account ID of the account you're using the back your campaign's API transactions. The easiest way to do this is to log into that account and then follow your Public Page link (aka. "Donor Page"). Your unique account ID is in your Donor Page's URL, eg. the account ID for the Donor Page https://www.donorschoose.org/donor/1644327?timestamp=1355502390740&publicview=true is 1644327.
2. On your Donor Page you'll see your campaign's aggregate impact stats, Projects supported, Students reached, Donors mobilized, and funded projects. Use the API with your unique account ID to pull in your campaign's "impact stats" and completed projects, as detailed at Donor Pages.