Projects
Projects are a lightweight way for communities to manage budgets for initiatives independent of their parent communities. Use a project if:
You would like to collect funds for a specific initiative or idea
You would like to allocate part of your community's budget to a specific initiative
You would like to track the spending on a specific initiative separate from the rest of your community
Projects have many of the same features as Communities. Projects have their own balances, contributions, and expenses. Projects can describe contribution tiers, set goals, and provide updates.
Budgets are independent. Projects can only spend what is allocated to them. And what is available within the project is not available from the parent Community.
Creating a Project
Administrators can create a project from the community profile page. Once you have registered an account and created a community you can create a project by clicking 'create project' in the Projects area on your community's profile page. You'll be asked to provide a project name, a URL and a description of your project:
Editing a project
Projects have many of the same features that Communities have. Clicking 'settings' from the project's page will open the project settings page where you can:
Edit the basic information about your Project
Customise the Project's profile page
Add contribution tiers and goals
Managing Project team members
You can add, remove or edit team members for projects separately from its parent Community. The parent Community's team members are all team members for any Projects in the Community.
Creating an Update
Updates are disabled by default on projects. To enable updates for a project click 'settings' within the project's profile page, select 'profile page' in the sidebar and select 'always visible' or 'only for admins' from the Updates dropdown under the 'Connect' section.
Once enabled administrators can create and publish updates using the same steps described for Communities.
Virtual Cards for Projects
Depending on your fiscal host, Projects may be eligible for their own virtual card to spend just from within this distinct budget.
Moving funds from Communities to Projects
To move funds from a Community to a Project:
Navigate to the Project profile page
Click 'Contribute money' from the Actions dropdown
Select the right amount and frequency (one time, monthly, yearly) and click 'your info'
Select the parent Community from the 'Contribute as' dropdown
Select the Community's balance as the payment method
There is currently an issue with this feature. To show the 'contribute money' button the project needs to have at least one contribution tier set.
Moving funds from Projects to Communities
To move all funds held by your Project to your Community:
Navigate to the project
Click on Settings
Advanced
Empty Project Balance - Click Send '$___' to Community'
To move a particular amount of money from your Project to your Community.
Navigate to your Community Page
Click Contribute
Select the desired amount
Select your Project from the Contribute as section
The Project balance should be automatically selected
Select Contribute
Zeroing a balance and closing a Project
If you wish to close down a Project you can Archive it or Delete it, in either case, you will need to zero the project balance.
From the Project profile page click 'Settings' and select 'Advanced' from the sidebar:
From here you can move the Project's remaining budget to its parent Community and archive a Project, disabling any future activity. If there has been no financial activity you can delete the Project, removing all of the data associated with the Project.
Note that, like Communities, you cannot delete a project if there are financial transactions associated with it. This enables us to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the ledger. Still having difficulty? Get in touch or ask in the #general slack channel.
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