Helpful Lists

Hello! In this lesson, we’re going to learn about creating supporter segments, or as we call them at Funraise, lists. Creating lists of supporters is a tactic that helps you take strategic fundraising action. 

Before we jump in, it’s important to note that creating lists is the simplest way to organize your supporter data in Funraise, but it’s not the only way. If you need more complex filtering functions or want to configure the view of your reports, you’ll be super interested in our premium and very rad custom reporting feature: Fundraising Intelligence.

Alright—for this lesson we’re going to build 4 helpful lists, including:

• LYBUNTY
• Potential recurring donors
• Volunteers by Postal Code, and 
• Thank $5k donors
  

LYBUNTY

First, let’s create a LYBUNTY report. LYBUNTY stands for Last Year But Unfortunately Not This Year. It’s a common report that displays supporters who donated last year, but who haven’t YET donated this year. We also like to call this: The Naughty List.

Your LYBUNTY list shows you which donors you should continue to nurture and ask for donations from this year. To create this list you need just one filter: Last Donation Date.

Next, select the date range. Rather than selecting a static date, select a relative date, called the “Magic date”  Select: Last year…  and apply the filter.

Ideally, there would be zero supporters on this list, meaning that everyone who donated last year has already returned to donate this year.

Give this list a name and save it for future reference.

Potential recurring donors

Next, let’s build a list to identify potential recurring donors. Here at Funraise, we believe a strong recurring donor base is a vital part of sustaining your revenue. But which of your donors is most likely to become a monthly donor? What we suggest is looking at the donors who’ve already given multiple times to your organization. This segment of supporters is most likely to understand the impact of a recurring donation.

To create this list, you need two filters:

First, let’s reduce the list to those who have donated more than once. Add a filter for Donation count is more than 1.

Second, filter out your current recurring donors—you don’t want to ask them to become a recurring donor! Add a filter for type does not equal recurring.

Then click Apply.

Those two filters will give you a list of returning donors who are not yet recurring donors. Call these supporters and ask them if they are willing to join your mission as a monthly donor. Really—call them! You’ll be surprised how much your supporters appreciate it and are willing to engage.

Give this list a name and save it.

Volunteers by Postal Code

In the next list, let’s say you have a local event coming up and need to fill a few more volunteer spots.

To identify local volunteers, filter by postal code to find your local supporters. Just add a filter for Postal Code equals 90802.

But to look at juuuust the volunteers in this zip code, you’ll need an additional data point—something that identifies a supporter as a volunteer. For this, use a Supporter tag.

Let’s step back quickly and learn about tags....

Tags are custom to your organization and enable you to track engagement or internal processes. You can add one or many tags to a supporter. Here are some example supporter tags:

• #volunteer
• #board_member
• #chapter_president
  

So, in the case of the local volunteers, you’ve tagged your volunteers, so you can filter by tags containing volunteer to further refine our list. 

After applying these filters, you’ve got a supporter list with a few local volunteers who may be able to help out! Give this list a name and save it for use with future events.

Donors Over $5K

Finally, let’s talk about donor recognition. For an individual donor, being personally thanked means a lot. Thinking about where you can insert personalized, donor recognition touchpoints into your donor journey is a good exercise—one that’ll have great results down the line.

As an example, imagine your organization completes projects that cost $5,000. It would be a good idea to thank a donor who funded a project—whether through multiple small donations or one large donation.

You might want to send these donors a special package or make a personal phone call to recognize their impact.

In Funraise, you can pull that list of supporters who’ve donated $5000 or more just by adding a filter for Total Amount Donated is equal to or more than 5000. 

Great—we’ve got a list of supporters to thank! But we better remove them from this list once we’ve recognized them… you don’t want them to get duplicate thanks!

Remember tags? Use a custom tag to signify that a supporter has received their $5,000 recognition. In this case, we’ll assume that a supporter tag of “5k_thanks” means that you’ve sent their package or called them on the phone.

Next time you pull the list, add a second filter to identify supporters who do not have the “5k_thanks” tag.

Now, you’re looking at a list of supporters who donated $5,000 and who haven’t been thanked. Time to get to work! You can give this list a name and save it for a regular monthly workflow.

Alright! There’s so much more you can do with Supporter lists, but we hope these quick examples put you on the right path.