Managing donation acknowledgements just got more flexible—especially when a donor wants someone else notified about their gift.

When a contribution is made to a fund (for example, a gift to the Cantors Music Fund in honor of a Bat Mitzvah), donors often request that a parent or honoree be informed. Until now, ShalomCloud treated the “donor” message and the “notifee” message as the same description.

This update introduces a simple but powerful improvement: you can now customize the description that appears in the acknowledgement sent to the notifee recipient—without changing what the contributor sees.

The scenario: donor + notify recipient

Here’s a common real-world use case:

• A donor makes a contribution in honor of a Bat Mitzvah.
• The donor asks that a parent (or another person) be notified.
• The system already stores the notifee’s email address with the transaction.

That foundation remains the same. What’s new is the ability to tailor the notification wording for the person being informed.

Bulk acknowledgements still work the same

If you’re processing multiple donations at once, you can continue to send acknowledgements in bulk:

1. Go to Queries → Financial Transactions.
2. Filter to the set of contributions you want to process (for example, the ones entered today).
3. Select the appropriate transactions.
4. Click Bulk Acknowledge Payments.

This flow supports handling half a dozen—or a dozen—contributions quickly and consistently.

What’s new: an override description for the notifee recipient

You’ll now see an additional description field that’s automatically populated with the description entered when the transaction was created.

• Default behavior: If you do nothing, the notifee recipient description matches the contributor description.
• New option: You can override the notify description to better fit the audience receiving the notification.

For example, instead of sending the honoree’s parent a generic description like “Bat mitzvah of Heather Boyle,” you can personalize it into something warmer and clearer—such as “Bat mitzvah of your daughter Heather.”

That small change can make a big difference in how thoughtful and personal the notification feels.

Templates and subject lines: unchanged (and still flexible)

Everything else about the acknowledgement process remains familiar:

• Choose an email template for the contributor.
• Choose an email template for the notify recipient.
• Enter a subject line if desired (if left blank, it defaults to “Donation”).
• Click the Send Acknowledgements button to deliver messages for the transactions you selected.

Why this matters

This enhancement helps organizations:

• Deliver more personal, context-appropriate donor notifications
• Reduce awkward or overly generic wording in honoree/parent emails
• Keep bulk processing fast while improving message quality

If your donors frequently give in honor of life events—and request that family members be informed—this new notifee description override is a practical upgrade that adds polish without adding extra steps.

See the full video: