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Refund a donation

This guide shows you how to refund a one-time donation — either back to the donor’s original payment card or as a credit on their member account.

Who can do this: Admins with the Finance role.

Important: a donation refund is final. It reverses the full gift and can’t be undone in the app. You’ll see the exact amount before you confirm. Because it moves money out, you may be asked to confirm your identity — by signing in again — before it goes through.

Before you start

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  • Only a settled gift — one whose status shows Succeeded — can be refunded. The Refund button appears only for those gifts.
  • Refunds are full amount only for now. There’s no partial-refund option.
  • To refund to a member’s account balance, the donor must be a member. An anonymous gift has no account to credit.

Steps

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  1. Open the donation from your Donations list.
  2. Select Refund.
  3. Read the summary line in the dialog. It names the exact amount and says the refund is final.
  4. Choose a Reason (required).
  5. Add Notes (optional) if you’d like. The notes show in your audit log.
  6. To credit the donor’s member account, turn on Refund to account balance. Leave it off to refund the card.
  7. Leave Email a refund receipt checked, unless you have a reason not to send one. Unchecking it shows a caution, because the choice is recorded.
  8. Select Refund. The button shows the exact amount. This can’t be undone.
  9. If you’re then asked to confirm it’s you, select Confirm identity. We’ll send you to sign in again. You’ll be asked for your password even though you’re already signed in, and then we’ll bring you back to this donation. There’s no code to type.
  10. Signing in takes you out of MapleGather and back, so the refund box does not survive the trip. Copy your reason and notes first if they were long. When you get back, select Refund again, re-enter them, and confirm. Do this promptly: a fresh sign-in only counts for a few minutes.

Verify

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You’ll know the refund went through when the donation’s status changes to Refunded and a confirmation shows the amount. The gift is now left out of the donor’s giving totals, and — unless you turned it off — a refund receipt is sent to the donor.

If something goes wrong

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  • “That refund needs a more recent sign-in.” — For your security, refunding this donation needs a more recent sign-in than the one you have. Nothing was refunded, and your reason and notes are still in the box. Select Confirm your identity to carry on. Copy anything long out first, though: signing in takes you out of MapleGather and back, and what you typed does not survive that trip. You’ll come back to the donation, re-enter it, and select Refund again. There is nothing to type at the sign-in step itself.
  • You signed in again and it still isn’t recent enough — the prompt says so, and its Confirm identity button is gone. Only Close is left. This usually means the sign-in went through on the session you already had, without ever asking you for your password. Reload the page. That is what brings the button back. Make a note of anything you have not saved on this page first — your refund reason and notes included: reloading clears the whole page, not just the sign-in prompt. Then start the refund again and go straight through without pausing. There is nothing to enable and nobody to ask: signing in again is what satisfies this, and you can do it yourself right now. If it keeps happening, MapleGather’s sign-in is letting you back in from your existing session without asking for your password, so it never counts as recent. Sign out completely, sign back in with your password, and start the refund again.
  • You cancelled at the sign-in page, or came back without signing in — you’ll land back on the donation with a note that signing in again wasn’t completed and the refund hasn’t been made. Nothing was refunded and nothing was recorded. The Refund button is still there; selecting it opens a fresh, empty box.
  • “We couldn’t confirm whether the refund went through” — your connection dropped, or the payment processor didn’t answer in time, so the refund may or may not have happened. The box locks to exactly what you sent. Select Retry the same refund to send that same refund again — it can’t refund the donor twice. Or select Discard — I’ll check the payment’s refunds first and look at the payment before you try anything else. Retry within a day: after 24 hours the processor no longer recognises the first attempt, so check the payment first.
  • “This gift has already been refunded” — someone refunded it in another tab. No further action is needed; open the record to confirm.
  • The account-balance option is grayed out — the donor is anonymous with no member account, so the refund can only go to the original card.
  • The card can’t be refunded — the original payment may be too old for the processor to reverse. For a member donor, refund to their account balance instead.
  • The Refund button isn’t there — the gift isn’t settled, it’s already refunded, or your role doesn’t include refunds. Only the Finance role can refund.
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