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FAQ

 
Q1: How can I find Donors who have given for the first time or given to a certain program for the first time?
Follow the steps below to use the Find Donors Report:
  1. Go to Stewardship >Donors.
  2. Click Reports > Find Donors.
  3. Set your parameters making sure to select "First HH Donation ANY Program" in the "Donors to Include" parameters.
  4. Click View Report.
  5. Click the "Create a selection" link.
  6. Close the report.
  7. Refresh the Donors page.
  8. Locate and use your new selection, which is called Donor Search Results.
You could also use the "First Gift This/Last Month" views on the Donors page.
 
Q2: How can I email statements to donors?
  1. Create a selection on the Donors page.
  2. Click Tools > New Message.
  3. Enter your message text.
  4. Insert the My Contribution Statement snippet as appropriate.
  5. Click Preview and Send.
Q3: How can I sort donor statements to print alphabetically?
You can change how you sort with the Sort Order drop-down on the report parameters. Select Name to sort alphabetically.
 
Q4: If the husband has his Statement Type set to Family, but the wife has hers set to Individual, how will the donations appear on the statement?
If a husband is marked as family and a wife is marked as individual, two statements print -- one for the family (only with the husband's gift, with both names printed) and one for the wife (with just her gifts, with just her name).
 
Q5: How can we print statements for only those who have a pledge balance?
You can do this by:
  1. Go to Stewardship > Pledges.
  2. Change the view to Active Pledges.
  3. Select all records.
  4. Click Xfer button.
  5. Choose the Donors page.
  6. From the Donors page, change the selection to From Pledges.
  7. Choose Reports > Donor Stmts: X Columns Selected.
 
Q6: How can we create a selection of people who have given this year, removing those with no email in the Platform?
  1. Go to Stewardship > Donors.
  2. Change the view to Giving This Year.
  3. Select all records.
  4. Change the view to Current/Unsaved Selection.
  5. Click Tools > Trim Selection.
  6. Remove the records missing emails.
  7. Save them with the desired Selection name.
Q7: How can a trust or company view their donations?
It is possible to create a user account (using the Users page in the Administration section) for a Company or Trust to enable the person responsible for giving through that company or trust to view their donations via the portal. Go to Administration > Users and click New. You need to click [...] and change your view to All Companies to associate the appropriate Contact record to the User account. Once the user account is created, the user can log into the Portal with either the credentials you give them, login with a link via a snippet in an email, or reset their account using the Portal reset account. 
 
Q8: We have a Household with two different giving units: the parents are one giving unit, and their adult children are another giving unit. How can we setup their Household so their giving statement doesn't combine the giving of the two different units?
You'll want to split the Household so that each giving unit is in their own Household.
 
Q9: I am printing paper statements and sending via bulk mail. How can I get a count by zip code for the Post Office?
There are a handful of ways to obtain this information:
  • When setting the report parameters on a Donor Stmts report, choose to Sort Order of Postal Code.
  • Create custom views for filtering for last year's Donors and each zip code range needed.
  • Search within your selection of last year's Donors for the zip code range needed (tip: use wildcards).
  • From your selection of last year's Donors, run the Selected Contact Demographics report and use the zip code pie chart graph.
  • From your selection of last year's Donors, run the Selected Mail Merge report and use Excel features to obtain zip code counts.
Q10: What does the Donor History - Lapsing view on the Donors page tell me? What Donors are included in this view?
These Donors are established Donors who have not given in 2-3 months (last gift between 90 and 60 days). Established means giving for more than 6 months and having given on average at least monthly (gave for at least 6 months, gave at least 6 times, gave at least 1 time per month during giving era). This view is by Donor (not by Household). Thus, if any giving was assigned to a spouse, this view doesn't know or care. To see lapsed Donors in light of the entire Household, use the Find Donor Household Change report.
 
Q11: We have a married couple in our congregation who have been members for many years.  When we looked at the view First Gift This Month on the Donors page, we noticed that the wife, Jane, was listed in this view even though John has been giving for several years now.  Why is Jane showing in this view?
The First Gift This Month view only looks at individual Donors. It does not consider Households. If you wanted to view first gifts from a Household, you could create a custom view that includes a filter that looks for first Household Gift.  You could also use a report, such as the Find Donor Households report to find first gifts in the Household.
 
Q12: We have two similarly named Donors. The Donations for one Donor were assigned to the wrong Donor. How do I correct this?
The first thing you will want to do is assign any Donations associated with the wrong person to the right donor. Then, if the Donor has been giving via check, there is probably a Donor Account record that is associated with the wrong Donor. This account can either be edited to the correct Donor or Deleted. 
 
Q13: We have two Accounting Companies, how do we determine which one our Donor statements will default to?
The default accounting company is going to be company with ID of 1.