May 19, 2020 | Categories Donor Management, DonorPerfect Fundraising Software, DonorPerfect Update, Featured

DP Release Announcement: Donor Management Made Easy

DonorPerfect makes your job as fundraisers easier. After all, using and maintaining your tools should be just a small portion of the work you do to support your mission. For this week’s release, we’re helping you quickly find your recently viewed donors and giving you the ability to reassign gifts from one donor to another. Thank you for these changes; both of these features were submitted in Suggest and Vote. Your ideas help us to make product improvements that reduce the time needed for donor management.

Finding Recently Viewed Donors is Easier than Ever

Advanced Search has always allowed you to view a list of recently accessed constituent records. However, clicking on advanced search every time complicates a donor management task that should be simple. A DonorPerfect user offered a suggestion to make this easier and many of you agreed. Now, from any screen, you simply click in the Quick Search field (available from any screen in DonorPerfect) to see a list of the 10 most recently accessed records. Here are the top three advantages of this new improvement:

1. Displays the 10 records YOU most recently viewed.

2. The list is clickable so you can quickly open the donor record.

3. It’s sticky! In other words, the list remains populated even after you log out.

Reassign Gifts for Easier Donor Management

Why would I need to move a gift record?

Mistakes happen. Downloading a gift from an Online Form or confusion around which donor to soft credit can result in gifts being added to the wrong record. The important thing is being able to correct any missteps. Now there is a quick way to fix data entry errors and better manage your donors.

How Can I Move a Gift Record?

You let us know that reassigning gifts was a cumbersome donor management task and asked for an easier way to move a donation. Now, instead of using the global update feature to move a gift, you can simply click the reassign gift option.

Three Easy Steps:

1. Click Reassign Gift from the gift edit screen.

2. Look up the donor record where the gift should be moved.

3. Click Reassign.

reassign gift in donorperfect

That’s all you have to do, DonorPerfect does the rest.

– All calculated fields will be recalculated.

– A message including the date and donor name where the gift was moved from will be appended to the gift narrative field.

– SmartActions with New Gift Save and Gift Delete triggers will process.

How Can I Find Gifts That Have Been Reassigned?

Moving gifts around can make reconciliation more difficult. That’s why we made sure to provide an easy way to find gifts that have been reassigned. An appended message including the reassignment date and the name of the previous donor record will be added to the gift narrative field anytime a gift is moved. All reassigned gifts can be located using any gift report and a simple filter. You can choose the report and build a filter that looks for gift narratives containing the word Reassigned.

Best Practice: Reprocess a Recent Gift

If the gift was received recently and the wrong donor was thanked it is a good best practice to reprocess the gift and issue a new receipt. Simply click Reprocess Gift on the action toolbar. The gift will be pending the next time you run receipts so the correct donor can be thanked.

*This is recommended for US clients only, Canadian clients should follow the steps to Reissue an Official Receipt.

Creating a Tab Order

One of the most essential donor management tasks is actually entering donor information into your database. Creating a logical tab order that jumps from one field to the next can make the process of data entry easier. This release featured a correction that eliminates the Title field as the first field in the tab order, allowing you to set a custom tab order that makes the most sense for you.

Release Notes

Donor management enhancements are not the only highlights of this release. Check out the Release Notes to preview additional improvements and corrections.

Christy S
Meet the author: Christy Smaglio

Christy attended Kutztown University, receiving a degree in English Literature. During her final year of school, she interned for a non-profit domestic violence agency writing grants, thank-you letters, and aiding in their fundraising events. She continued her non-profit work for another four...

Learn more about Christy Smaglio
16 Comments
  1. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways! Thank you so much for these AMAZING upgrades. Each of them will make my job in data entry SIGNIFICANTLY easier. What a lovely gift for Memorial Day. Thank you so much to everyone who has worked so hard to make the magic happen. I can't wait to start using all of these great improvements.
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Susan, We're so happy that these improvements will make a difference in your day to day work!
  2. Teresa Willis permalink
    Thanks for the updates. Being able to reassign gifts is wonderful!
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Teresa, We're so glad to hear from you and happy that the updates will help you with your work!
  3. Candice permalink
    Well this definitely helped me with a recent issue that I had. However, I do see we cannot split gifts or is it just me?
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Candance, We're so happy to hear that this change helps you with your work. Gifts can still be split, but we did make a few changes regarding the split gift feature in this release. If the gift is applied to a tribute or a pledge it cannot then be split. However, you can split a gift first and then apply one of the splits to a tribute or pledge. If you have any questions, please always reach out to support for clarification. Thank you!
  4. Sarah Berryman permalink
    Thanks for continuing to improve! I do have a comment though on the new recently viewed donors feature. I was just trying it out and discovered that when I search for a donor and then click on the gift icon so I can directly enter a donation, that record does not appear on the list. Only the donors I click on and are directly taken to their main page show up on the list. But I still like the new feature - thanks!
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Sarah, Thank you for letting us know that you like the new feature! That is also great feedback for improvements that can be made in future iterations.
  5. Janusz permalink
    Great improvements for data entry people. Thanks! More like this! There is small conflict with TY Letter codes that maybe you could solve. I think your TY letter assignment by code properties runs only at first save, so if gift is reassigned to donor with, let’s say “welcome letter” but original was just General it will keep original. In my case secretaries don’t see this field because every selection is coded so will create additional challenge to improvement. If your TY code selection filters were working any time gift was saved, this could solve the problem. Thanks, Janusz
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Janusz, We're glad this new feature will help your team! Thank you for letting us know about the additional challenge you face with your Thank You Letter Codes. This idea has been added to Suggest and Vote for you. Please feel free to add your vote. Thank you!
  6. Love the new reassign gift feature! But is there a way to turn off the new Quick Search listing of recently viewed records? It is cluttering up the view of the current screen and tabs. Thanks.
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Mischa, We're glad the reassign gift feature is helpful! In this first iteration of the new recently viewed donor record feature there is no way to turn it off, but we're always looking to make improvements. You can add your vote to this Suggestion recently submitted.
  7. Agyemang Sarpong permalink
    We do tend to long on into the donor perfect account,We have the donation platform setup however we are having trouble attracting people to donate to support our cause. Anyway you can help us with that? I will try to give you a call tomorrow to check in with you concerning this issue.
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Agyemang, Thank you for reaching out to us. I've spoken to your Client Relations Specialist (CRS) and he will be happy to get in touch with you shortly. Your CRS is an excellent resource and can help with recommending some best practices regarding your database. Thank you!
  8. Tracy Smith permalink
    I love the reassign gifts feature. This makes it much easier to navigate this process. I am frustrated with the fact that I can no longer split recurring gifts with just a few clicks. What used to be a simple process is now multiple steps and it is taking me much longer to process these donations. It is taking me 3-4 times longer for each gift. I would love a simple work-around.
    • Christy Smaglio permalink
      Hi Tracy, We're so glad to hear that the reassigning gift features is helping your workflow! We've also heard from many of our users regarding the difficulty with the changes to split gifts and hope to have a resolution we can offer you in the 06 release. Thank you!

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