Managing donation limits

[dviciedo]

I have a question about click and pledge managing donation limits on a WID with multiple candidates and using PaaS.

I know when using your "Advanced Checkout Page" it will manage the limits for each candidate and individual donor but will you still manage those limits when using the PaaS API? As long as the item (candidate name) is the same? Is there another identifier that you use besides the candidate name?

Thanks,
David

[CnP.Support]

David,

Checkout pages (e.g. Advanced Checkout Page") have a local validation script that tests the OTHER field of the donation options against the value set as the limit in the administrative system. The limit is simply checked against the value entered in the form and not a historical limit.

There is a problem with checking limits historically. Political campaigns rules & regulations are not really simple - they are not set by simple minded engineers - they are set by committees - I can only imagine.

Here are a few examples:

- Individuals have limits
- Couples have different limits
- States, localities, and Federal campaigns have different limits
- Limits are date based - primary versus general election rules are different

The above are just a few exceptions I know of based on discussions with clients.

Now let's see what identifies an individual in a digital world:

- First name? William is different from Bill but people write their name as Bill or William in forms. We have seen people enter first name as: Dr. & Mrs. John
- Emails? People use their work email and their personal emails as they see fit for the occasion

the above 2 should give you an idea as to why it is not practical to match someone's donations against his/her previous donations. We cannot accurately / correctly determine in "real-time" if someone has exceeded his/her limit within the election period.

I suggest that you simply do a local validation against a set amount for each candidate. The JavaScript should simply check the value entered in the OTHER field against the limit and offer a warning if the donation exceeds the limit.

The above also presents the problem I said before about refund possibilities when a donation exceeds the limit for one candidate and not other candidates. If a donation is made as 1 transaction and one candidate's donation has to be returned you have to issue a partial refund through the bank and that creates complications. Just something to consider.