Basic Reporting Part IVb: Donation Report Tips

Basic Reporting Part IVb: Donation Report Tips

1. If the goal is to create a mailing list of past donors to send an appeal letter or other type of communication, then the easiest avenue is to use the Letters function within CRM (Create New Communication: My Templates: Letters. See this tutorial on working with Letters).
2. The easiest way to find a list of contacts who are donors is to use the criteria “Contact Type Equals Donor” (this can be done in an advanced search, Express View, and advanced reports).

   

3. In the Contacts Table (for reports)/Donor Information Category (for Advanced Search) are several fields that will help you find different type of donors:
   • Average Gift Amount (find donors whose average gift amount – averaged across all past gifts – is equal to, less than, or greater than a certain amount),
   • Max Gift Amount (find donors whose largest gift ever made to your organization is equal to, greater than, or less than a certain amount),
   • First Gift Amount (find donors whose first recorded donation on file is equal to, greater than, or less than a certain amount),
   • First Gift Date (find donors whose first recorded donation is on, between, before, or after a certain date),
   • Last Gift Amount (find donors whose most recent gift date is equal to, greater than, or less than a certain amount),
   • Last Gift Date (find donors whose most recent gift date is equal to, between, before, or after a certain date),
   • Lifetime Gift (total amount given to date by the donor).

     

4. The default LYBUNT (donors who donated last year but not this year) report in the Donation Reports category uses your fiscal year settings on Main Menu: Settings: Financial determine the time period for “last year.” If your fiscal year starts in January, then the LYBUNT report will use 01/01 to 12/31 of the previous year as the “last year” time period of donations. If your fiscal year starts on July 1, then the LYBUNT will use 07/01 of the last year to 06/30 of the current year as the “last year” for donations.

   

5. The default SYBUNT report in the Donation Reports category finds contacts who donated “some year but not this year” (that is, donors who donated at some time in the past).

   

6. To find donors who have or have not given within a certain time period, you can use the “Last Donation Date” field on the Contact table (e.g. “last donation date not after 1/1/2017 to find everyone who hasn’t yet donated this year or “last donation date between 01/01/2016 and 12/31/2016” to create a LYBUNT/find everyone who donated last year but not this year) or you can use the “Recency in Months” field on the Contacts table (e.g. “Recency in Months is greater than 6” to find everyone whose most recent donation was more than 6 months ago/to find everyone who had not donated in the last six months).

   

   

7. To find new donors (donors who first donated during a certain time period), use the First Gift Date field (this can be done in Advanced Search, Express View reports, and Advanced Reports).

   

8. Keep in mind that simply searching on contact type is donor and/or donation date fields will include in your report in-kind donations and voided donations. You need to add a filter for “Voided equals false” to exclude voided transactions and a filter for “gift type equals gift” to exclude in-kind donations (both fields are found on the donations table).
9. You can find tribute gifts by adding the Tribute Information field (found on the Donation table) to your report. You can use this as a filter to limit the report to just those who made a tribute gift in honor of a particular person or you can add this as a field on the report layout to see tribute gift information.

   

10. To include or exclude donors who have only ever given In-Kind gifts, add filters to your report for “Contact Type is Donor” AND “Lifetime Gift amount equal to $0" (for those who have only given in-kind) / "Lifetime Gift amount not equal to $0” (for those who have given any cash gifts) (in-kind donations don’t have a donation amount; instead, they have a “fair market value” field, but no donation amount so if someone is a donor but given $0 total lifetime, then they have only made in-kind donations) (you can add these criteria in an Advanced Search, Express View, and Advanced Reports) (in Advanced Search “Lifetime Gift” is in the Donor Information category).
11. To create a report that provides the details of the dashboard Donor Category Chart, add the Donor Category field from the Contact's table to a report.

    

    

12. Donor Categories counts the "current year" as the previous calendar/fiscal year (depending on setting. See step #13 below). The reason for this is that if you are sending your annual appeal in the beginning of the year, it is not helpful to know who is a new donor as of this/the current year, because no donations have come in for this year yet. So for all Donor Categories, count backwards starting with the previous fiscal/calendar year as Year 1.
13. The definitions of the Donor Categories are as follows:
    • New Donor: Donor who has donated first time in the previous year. If it currently is 2018, the a New Donor is someone who first donated in 2017.
    • Second Year Donor: Donor who has donated for the first time two years ago. If it currently is 2018, then a Second Year Donor is someone who donated for the first time in 2016.
    • Multi-Year Donor: Donor who has donated consecutively in last 2 years. If it currently is 2018, a Multi-Year Donor is someone who donated in 2016 and 2017.
    • Reactivated Donor: Donor who has donated in some year and then donated last year but not donated in the year before last year. If it currently is 2018, then a Reactivated Donor donated in 2015 or prior, didn't donate in 2016, and then donated again in 2017.
    • Lapsed 1 Year: Donor who has donated next to last year (2 years ago from current year) but not donated last year (donor who has lapsed for 1 year). If it currently is 2018, then a Lapsed 1 Year donor last donated in 2016.
    • Lapsed 2 Year: Donor who has donated two years ago (3 years ago from current year)) but not donated last year (donor who has lapsed for 2 years). If it currently is 2018, then a Lapsed 2 Year donor last donated in 2015.
    • Lapsed 3 Year: Donor who has donated some time before 3 years from last year (r years ago from current year) but not donated last year (donor who has lapsed for 3 years). If it currently is 2018, then a Lapsed 3 Year donor last donated in 2014 or prior to 2014.
14. The Donor Categories are based on your current calendar year or fiscal year. To choose whether the chart and reports use the fiscal year or calendar year, go to Main Menu: Configurations: Contacts: Donor Categories and set the toggle at the top of the page.

    

    

15. To find donors who have given over or under a certain amount total, you can either use "Lifetime Gift" to find donors who have given over or under that amount total for all gifts or you can follow this tutorial to find total donations of a certain amount within a certain date range.
16. How to household a report, how to create a single salutation field that includes household and individual salutations in one column, and how to add totals to reports are all covered in tutorials and FAQs in the reports section of the support library.
17. To segment your donor list into categories based on how much (lifetime) they have given, how many times (lifetime) they have given, and/or how recently they have given, configure/use Amount Groups, Recency Groups, and Frequency groups and then use those in Advanced search and reports. This tutorial explains how to configure and use A/F/R groups.