updated 7-19-2012

So you know how to make a donation page in NationBuilder? It’s pretty cool. It’s got a donation goal and a thermometer. But let’s say you want to start your donation drive with some money already donated. Or if you want your progress bar to take into account offline donations given outside NationBuilder.

How do you adjust your donation page so it’s not starting at zero donations? Well, that’s when you have to get down to adjusting your template using “liquid.” Don’t worry it’s not too complicated.

Okay the first thing we’re going to do is going to look a little convoluted, but that’s because of the way NationBuilder works and the way the liquid templating language works. In the template, both the donation amount number and the donation goal are formatted to look like currency (with a dollar sign and commas) so we’re going to want to remove those. The way to do that is with the “remove” filter and “capture” tag, and adding some code to our template right under <div id="content">.

Setting up dynamic social media fields will let users craft their own messages to share links with their friends and family. It has the added benefit of letting organizers duplicate a form without worrying about a lot of code. With this tutorial, we’ll create a form with three share fields — email, Twitter, and Facebook — where users can customize the text shared.

The end result looks like this:

We love NationBuilder and all the built-in integration it offers its users. One of the places where it shines is in the donation department. For those candidates and organizations that would like to accept donations and other payments directly through their NationBuilder site, there are a few different options for integrated payment processors.

For those folks in the US, NationBuilder integrates with Authorize.net, as well as Democracy Engine. We like Democracy Engine a lot for our clients - the interface is straightforward, and you don’t need a merchant account at your bank to start accepting donations right away. Authorize.net offers a very nice integration as well.

Mothers are considered to be among the most revered members of our society. Celebrities publicly thank their moms for helping them to achieve their dreams. Politicians wax poetic about valuable childhood lessons bestowed upon them by their mothers. Even female politicians talk about how their motherly instincts give them some sort of special insight into public policy.

"... Moms kinda just know when something's wrong ... I always think of the mamma grizzly bears that rise up on their hind legs when somebody's coming to attack their cubs, to do something adverse toward their cubs ... You don't wanna mess with the momma grizzlies." - Sarah Palin

And everyone knows, you never make a joke about someone else’s mom, unless you want to stir up some trouble.
But is all of this talk and rhetoric just lip service? Does our society truly value mothers – all mothers – and the challenges that come with motherhood?