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Introduction

Integrating with OnlineFundraising

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1. Introduction

This guide outlines the different ways your organisation can integrate with OnlineFundraising, along with key considerations for each approach.

A natural starting point is to evaluate the data currently in - or soon to enter - OnlineFundraising. Factors such as your data volume, expected growth/scaling and required processing frequency will determine which integration model best fits your needs.

In this guide, we cover:

  1. Scheduled integrations
  2. Event-based integrations (Recommended)
  3. Embedding OnlineFundraising
Note for developers
- If you are building or planning an integration with OnlineFundraising, please refer to our full: API-documentation
- Please also follow our developer newsletter

2. When Should You Integrate?

Integrating with OnlineFundraising is not required to use the platform. OnlineFundraising supports standard file exports out of the box for routine workflows, such as:

  • Bookkeeping & Reconciliation: Exporting payment data for a specified date range.
  • Call Lists: Exporting phone numbers for contacts who texted a specific campaign keyword.

Learn how to configure and run exports in our support guide.

3. Meet Our Integration Partners

You do not need to build everything yourself. The OnlineFundraising team is happy to facilitate conversations between your organisation and qualified integration partners.

Explore our existing integration partners here.

4. Prerequisites

Integrating with OnlineFundraising requires an understanding of our advanced data model and API structure.

  • Developers: Please review our Data Model & API Overview before getting started.
  • Non-technical readers: You can safely skip this prerequisite and focus on the models below.

5. Integration Models

5.1. Scheduled Integration (Batch Polling)

In this model, your external system periodically queries the OnlineFundraising API (e.g. via a nightly batch job). You can apply query filters to retrieve records modified or created within a specific timeframe.

Best suited for: Use cases that do not require real-time data, such as daily BI dashboards, reporting aggregates, or nightly CRM syncs.

Key considerations:

  • Pagination & Rate Limits: A single API request returns up to 100 records. Your integration must handle pagination (requesting subsequent batches of 100). For large datasets, the total number of API requests can grow rapidly.

  • Change Tracking (Delta Sync): Reliably identifying records updated after an initial sync requires careful logic. Ensure your system also has robust retry and error handling in place if a batch request fails or times out.

  • Scalability: While suitable for moderate data volumes, polling jobs can become inefficient or slow as data volume and sync frequency increase.

5.2. Event-Based Integration (Webhooks) - Recommended

OnlineFundraising supports webhooks triggered by real-time platform events—such as when a subscription updates or a payment fails. Review our full list of event types.

With webhooks, your external system is notified immediately when an event occurs, allowing you to process data continuously and only query the API for the specific records that changed. This is OnlineFundraising’s recommended integration pattern.

Best suited for: Workflows that require immediate action based on donor activity - such as triggering a marketing automation sequence, queuing a follow-up call, or sending an instant transactional message.

Key considerations:

  • Idempotency & Processing State: Design your receiving endpoint to track processed events and handle duplicates gracefully. Plan fallback routines in case your endpoint temporarily fails to process an incoming payload.

  • Asynchronous Delivery & Ordering: Webhooks are delivered asynchronously, meaning delivery order may not always match the exact chronological order of events. For instance, your system might receive an updated event shortly before the initial created event arrives.

  • Traffic Spikes & Retries: Webhook volume fluctuates with donor activity. If your server is unreachable or returns an error, OnlineFundraising will retry delivery multiple times according to our delivery retry policy. Ensure your listener can handle sudden bursts in incoming traffic.

  • Historical Backfills: If needed, you can trigger retrospective webhooks for past events to backfill external systems.

5.3. Embedding OnlineFundraising (UI Integration)

In addition to API and webhook integrations, you can embed OnlineFundraising directly into external tools (such as your CRM) using secure iframes pointing to specific Contact or Subscription records.

Best suited for: Allowing support staff or fundraisers to view and interact directly with OnlineFundraising records inside their everyday CRM interface, without switching tabs or building complex bidirectional syncs.

 

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Tip: Many organisations find that combining an event-based integration (to keep core data in sync) with embedded iframes (to give staff full context and direct controls) provides the best balance of automation and usability.

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