Welcome to Thrinacia, the CrowdFunding infrastructure. In this tutorial, we will be showing you the proper way to set up your Crowdfunding platform in 10 easy steps to get you started on the right track.
Please note, if you want to host a single campaign on another existing website, please read the following article on the quick widget setup.
Please use the below links for references to the steps:
- Step 1. Sign in to the live Discord chat, or use support@thrinacia.com
- Step 2. Use a custom domain name (optional).
- Step 3. Create a Stripe account.
- Step 4. Log in to the site and connect the Stripe account.
- Step 5. Go to the website settings and add the website send + receive email.
- Step 6. Choose the type of contributions that can be made.
- Step 7. Insert Social media links.
- Step 8. Update the theme + pages.
- Step 9. Create the first test campaign.
- Step 10. Continue updating the campaign settings, email notifications and user experience to your needs.
1. Sign in to the live Discord chat, or use support@thrinacia.com.
Before we jump into using the platform, you will need to know where to go for help. Each Crowdfunding website and platform is unique, so you may need to ask questions about your unique experience that you want to deliver to your users. Please use the following:
- For live discussions sign into thrinacia.com/chat We are available 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific Time from Monday to Friday to answer questions on the Discord chat. The Discord chat is NOT a place to report issues or send personal information.
- Send an email to support@thrinacia.com or create a ticket in the Nexus ticketing system if you would like to upgrade/downgrade & cancel plans, report an issue, or share personal information.
- You can also schedule a meeting with us by booking a meeting on our calendar here.
2. Use a Custom domain name (optional).
If you would like to use a custom domain, or subdomain for your platform, please read this FAQ on How to change my website to use my custom domain name.
In short, all you need to do is let us know what domain name you would like to use, and we will send you the information to add to your DNS settings.
3. Create a Stripe account.
Stripe is the native payment gateway that is used on Atlas. If you plan on accepting donations on the platform, you will need to first create a Stripe account. This should only take a few minutes. Please read the following for a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a Stripe account for your Crowdfunding platform.
4. Log in to the site and connect the Stripe account.
Use the credentials provided in your welcome email to log in to your Crowdfunding platform. The credentials should be under the section called “Access Information for your CrowdFunding website is shown below“.
Once you log into the website, you will see a message that asks you how you would like to process the transactions. There are 2 ways to process transactions on the platform.
1. Receive all donations into a single Stripe account. Read this article for more information.
3. Using PayPal to process payments the same way as option #1.
Please note that you need to save the website settings, and RELOAD the page in order to view the new changes whenever you are working in the admin dashboard.
5. Go to the website settings and add the website send & receive email.
If you want to fully white label the platform, you will need to update the address that will send the emails to your users on the platform and where you will receive emails from the platform.
Simply go to the admin dashboard, click on Portal Settings, then click on Website Settings.
Scroll down to the sections called “Website Send Email” & “Website Receive Email”
Add the emails that you want to use for you platform.
6. Choose the type of contributions that can be made.
There are several types of ways to make contributions on the platform. You can pledge by creating a new user, guest user, or express checkout.
You can set what types of contributions that you want your users to be making on the site by scrolling down to the section called “Inline Contributions” (if you are still located in the website settings) and checking the appropriate boxes.
7. Insert Social media links.
Next, scroll up (if you are still located in the website settings) to the section called “Social Media Links“, and click on the dropdown.
Here you can add your own social media links (or remove the icons shown above the footer section by deleting the placeholder links) to the platform as shown below:
8. Update the theme + pages.
To update the UI (User Interface) of your platform for your branding, you will need to read and update each section of the “Theme Settings” specific to your needs. This could be the most time-consuming portion of the setup as you want to cater the experience to your users.
To locate the Theme Settings (if you are still located in the website settings as per the previous steps) scroll to the top of the page, and click on “Theme Settings“.
After filling out the sections, you can then update the default pages so they are unique to your brand. To find the pages (if you are still located in the admin dashboard) click on the Pages tab at the top of the page.
You will see a list of different pages that you can manipulate. Be sure to add your legal documents into the appropriate pages (there is only default “Lorem Ipsum” text located there).
9. Create the first test campaign.
It is recommended that you create your a test campaign first before going live with your platform to ensure that your website configuration is set up properly.
To create a campaign, click on the start button or go to your website domain name /start. Then fill out the steps, and donate to the campaign.
Your campaign creation steps may be different depending on your configuration.
10. Continue updating the campaign settings, email notifications and user experience to your needs.
Once you have completed the above steps, you can further customize the experience to your needs such as the Campaign Settings, Email Notifications, and other settings in the admin dashboard to further customize and improve your user experience.