Why we built white-label domains into Givr

The moment we understood the ask

When congregants scan a QR code and land on a giving page, what domain are they on? In Givr's earlier versions, they'd land on our hosted page. Works fine. Secure. Fast. But the treasurer's point was real: a church's own domain carries weight. It says 'we own this. We've thought about it. Come here to support us.'

I spent an afternoon in our Manchester church's WhatsApp group (a chaotic place, fair warning). The feedback was mixed but telling. Some members had never noticed the domain. Others said they'd feel more confident giving if it was clearly the church's site. One person wrote: 'I'd share it more if it felt like theirs, not a third-party thing.' That's when it clicked. White-label wasn't a feature for tech-savvy treasurers. It was about permission and ownership.

What it actually means for your church

White-label custom domain in Givr works like this: instead of your congregation landing on givr.church / [yourchurch], they land on giving.yourchurch.org or whatever subdomain you choose. The Givr engine runs underneath - the QR code handling, the Gift Aid declaration capture, the HMRC submission. But the page feels native to your church's web presence.

It's a Grow tier feature, which sits alongside API access for churches that want to build deeper integrations. The custom domain plugs in via CNAME record (your web host can walk you through it in five minutes). No technical degree required. We made sure of that.

Why does this matter? Trust, partly. But also: a consistent giving experience. If your church newsletter links to giving.yourchurch.org, your website links there, and your printed bulletin mentions it by name, you're not splitting attention across platforms. You're owning the moment.

The Gift Aid advantage stays yours

Here's what doesn't change with white-label: the automated Gift Aid declaration and HMRC submission. That's the backbone of what Givr does. Whether a donor lands on your custom domain or Givr's, they see a Gift Aid eligibility question (if they haven't answered it before), they declare, and Givr captures that data securely.

Then, in the Gather tier and above, Givr handles the heavy lifting: collecting all your church's Gift Aid declarations, batching them, and submitting them directly to HMRC Charities Online. No manual spreadsheets. No scrappy year-end panic. The estimated £560 million in unclaimed Gift Aid across UK churches exists because most treasurers don't have time to chase it. Givr does the work.

With a white-label domain, you're not losing any of that automation. The custom URL is a presentation layer. The Gift Aid engine remains untouched, working the same way it would on any Givr-hosted page.

Who actually uses it, and why

We launched white-label on the Grow tier because churches that want custom domains typically want deeper integration into their own infrastructure. Some are running complex donor management systems. Others have mature web presences and want giving to feel native. A few are multi-site and want a giving page per location, each on their own domain.

But it's not just for large churches. A 150-member congregation in Bristol approached us because they have their own web hosting and wanted to move away from commercial giving platforms entirely. White-label meant they could consolidate everything on their own domain, reduce vendor bloat, and keep control of the experience.

The feature also appeals to churches that share treasurer duties or prefer not to advertise that they're using a third-party platform. Nothing wrong with that. Some churches market Givr openly. Others prefer the Givr engine to be invisible. A custom domain lets them choose.

What happens next

White-label custom domain is in our roadmap, shipping soon. We're testing it with a handful of Grow tier churches now, and the feedback has been straightforward: it works, it feels good, and it doesn't complicate their giving process.

One treasurer told us she felt 'more professional' explaining the giving process to new members when the page was on the church domain. That wasn't a technical outcome. That was a human one. And that's what this feature is really about.