Choose a working view
Start in Supporter records. All supporters includes people who have not donated. New identifies records without received giving; Recurring identifies an active or past-due recurring relationship; Needs thanks identifies received gifts without a recorded acknowledgment. Lapsed includes lapsing and lapsed relationships. My follow-ups shows supporters with an open task assigned to you. Apply a search, supporter type or saved segment to narrow the same underlying list. The total reflects the complete filtered dataset, and Load more retrieves the next page.
Understand the lifecycle label
Lifecycle is derived from received giving, recurring status and any explicit team override. An older giving date can indicate a lapsing or lapsed relationship; a returning gift after a long gap can indicate recovery. An active recurring plan keeps the relationship active even if the next installment is still due. These are workflow labels, not judgments about someone's willingness or financial capacity. Check the latest actual interaction and any team override before choosing an approach. A verified offline gift participates in these calculations just as a settled online gift does.
Build a segment with a clear purpose
Create saved segment, name the audience and choose whether all or any criteria must match. Criteria can use giving amounts, gift counts, dates, tags, recurring status and explicit purpose consent. Amount rules need a currency: 100 dollars and 100 euros are not the same threshold. The interface accepts the major-unit amount and converts it to the selected currency's minor units. If an older amount segment has no currency, save a currency-specific copy before using it. The original remains available for review. Segment membership is recomputed from current records; it is not a permanent list or permission to email everyone in it.
Review the reason before acting
Open Suggested next steps in a supporter record. A suggestion cites a saved task, gift or pledge and the relevant date. Review an acknowledgment when a received gift has no recorded thank-you, inspect an open task, or consider a personal check-in based on giving history. Due pledge guidance uses the remaining balance after effective allocations and reversals. The review button opens the relevant part of the record; it does not create a task, send email or claim to know the donor's circumstances. An empty suggestion list means no rule currently indicates a next step, not that your team should ignore the relationship.
Reconcile received giving
Open Giving and retention, choose a reporting period and run the report. Dates use UTC gift-date boundaries. Compare received, reversed and awaiting-verification amounts within each currency and source. Current reversals restate the original gift-date period, so a report run today can differ from a copy saved before a refund. Pledges and recognition are excluded from received totals. Resolve any unlinked-payment notice before treating the report as complete. Keep the report date and source documents with your reconciliation notes.
Read retention as a cohort comparison
The report compares your selected period with the immediately preceding period of the same length. Within each currency, prior donors are canonical supporters who gave in the prior period, and retained donors gave in both periods. If two prior donors gave and one returns, retention is 50 percent. If there were no prior donors, the report says there is no comparison rather than showing a misleading zero. Merged aliases count as the same relationship, while recognition credits do not create extra donors. Adjust dates deliberately when comparing seasonal campaigns.
Separate campaign attribution from cause
Campaign response shows received gifts by campaign, currency and source. The email short-link measure identifies gifts recorded through an email-channel link. It does not prove that a mailing caused the gift, that the donor read the email, or that the recipient and donor are the same person: links can be shared. Combine this measure with actual conversations and campaign evidence. If something seems implausible, inspect the underlying gift, destination and source reference instead of generating a persuasive explanation for a number you have not reconciled.