September 17, 2026

This release brings Donor Experience to every school that wants it, rebuilds the donor record and Payment Pages, gives admins a new student profile, and makes scholarship season easier to run with bulk question management and smarter follow-ups.

- Donor Experience is available. Every donor can have a living, school-branded impact page with reports, thank-you letters and their own preferences.

- Payment Pages, redesigned. A six-step builder with live preview for you, a three-step giving flow for donors, QR codes with source tags, and split gifts.

- A new student profile for admins. One page with a summary rail that stays put, plus Profile, Activity, Awarding and Application tabs.

- Manage additional requirement questions in bulk. Add, update, replace or remove a question across many scholarships in one pass.

- Follow-ups you can fix.Reopen a single student's follow-up, set due dates on any post-award item, and re-awards restore follow-ups automatically.

- Donor emailing for Donor Management schools.Campaigns, newsletters, communication preferences and Segments turn on with no setting to change.

- One permissions table. Super Admins review and change every permission for an admin in one place, and admins can ask for access from the page they were blocked on.

- Hundreds of fixes across online giving, events, awarding, emails, reports and accessibility.

Donor Experience puts the whole stewardship cycle inside AwardSpring. Impact reports and student thank-you letters are drafted, reviewed and approved by your team, and each donor reads them on a page of their own under your school's branding. The link in their email is their identity: no password, no account to create.

New this release:

- Donor Portal card on the donor record. See whether a donor has a working sign-in link and when they last visited. Send a fresh link, revoke access, or preview the portal as the donor sees it.

- Preview at every giving level. Switch between the four giving levels while previewing. Previewing never counts as a donor visit.

- Your message to every donor. Write a short message from the Advancement Office once in Donor Portal settings. Every donor sees it near the top of their page.

- Portal level follows giving. Levels are based on total recorded giving, using bands shown on the new Giving Pyramid page. A donor is never moved down on their own, and a staff pin still wins.

- Brand Kit refinements and a one-click restart for a stalled impact report run.

Donor Experience is turned on by the AwardSpring team and requires a full plan. Your customer success manager can enable it and walk you through setup under Settings > Donor Portal.

The donor record, rebuilt (all schools). The new donor and constituent profile is now the default page for every school, with a header of quick actions, a left summary rail, and Profile, Public Profile, Activity and Documents tabs. Schools that use AwardSpring for scholarships only keep their Donors tab and see a streamlined profile with contact details, documents and associated scholarships. Old links land in the right place.

Payment Pages Redesign: Both sides have been rebuilt. Existing pages keep working exactly as they did.

- For your team: a six-step builder (Appearance, Gift Amounts, Donor Form, Field Mapping, Thank You, Publishing) plus a read-only Gifts ledger; live preview of unsaved edits at desktop and phone widths; a new list with All / Published / Drafts tabs, Stripe status and per-row progress; downloadable QR codes with editable source tags that are reportable in Giving Records; designations mapped to funds, optional split gifts, and dedications that create a soft credit.

- For your donors: three short steps (Gift, Your info, Payment) carrying your brand color and cover image, working cleanly on a phone. A split gift is recorded as one gift with a line per fund.

Donor emailing turns on with Donor Management. Campaigns, newsletters, communication preferences, pinned details and Segments are now on for every Donor Management school automatically. Scheduled sends recheck each donor's preferences at send time. Super Administrators can send; department-limited admins cannot send school-wide. Existing unsubscribe links keep working.

Manage additional requirement questions in bulk. From the Scholarships page, open Manage Additional Requirements and choose Add, Update, Replace, Remove, or View the question bank. A review step spells out what will change and how many scholarships and in-progress applicants are affected, and warns when a change reaches students mid-cycle. Every apply is all or nothing. You can also create questions inline, including a personalized version that inserts each scholarship's name, and retire questions you no longer need.

Follow-ups on the Task Board.

- Reopen a single student's closed follow-up on one scholarship without touching anyone else. If the closure came from a denial made in error, the same action restores the award standing. A follow-up approved with a recorded payment is final.

- Set an optional due date on any post-award item, not just thank-you letters. Students see it on their dashboard and overdue items move to your overdue list.

- Unaward and re-award a student and their post-award follow-up comes back automatically, with the history showing why.

Award and Deny. A student can no longer be denied once one of their payments is confirmed disbursed. You are told who was held back and why, and the rest of a bulk action still goes through. Two admins can no longer award more students than a scholarship allows.

Open any student and you see one page: breadcrumb, name, tabs, and a summary rail that stays in view.

- Summary rail: About, Pinned Answers, and an Awarding Summary. Each admin picks their own set of pinned application answers once and it follows them to every student.

- Profile tab: cards in two columns, saving as you move off each field. Deactivate an account instead of deleting it.

- Activity tab: emails, submissions and awards in one timeline with delivery badges (Opened, Delivered, Bounced, Scheduled).

- Awarding tab: every scholarship in the chosen cycle with amount, score and standing. Expand a row to see each requirement.

- Application tab: a history of every cycle the student could have applied in, with answers for any past cycle. Third-party requests show as Completed or Pending, and you can view, resend, or move a request back to pending from the card.

- One table for every area and feature permission per administrator. Click an access level to change it; each change saves immediately.

- Ask for access: when an admin lands on a page they cannot open, they can request access there. Every Super Admin gets a bell notification that links straight to that person's permissions. Nothing is granted automatically.

- Menus and pages now use the same access rule for Segments, Emails and SpringIQ Activity.

A large round of fixes found in testing and reported by customers. The ones you are most likely to notice:

- Online giving: donors can complete gifts with designation choices, every gift records once, and completed gifts appear in Giving Records and on the donor record.

- Events: first-time guests can register, paid registrations save and confirm, promo codes work on the public page, waitlist and check-in behave.

- Awarding: congratulations emails no longer reach denied students, Award and Deny notes save to the right applicant, payment schedule rows survive Save.

- Students: the dashboard no longer sticks on a spinner, deadline filters match only open scholarships, essay follow-up answers save without a minimum word count.

- Emails and letters: standard emails no longer send empty, the general application submission alert sends, approved thank-you letters reach the donor.

- Donor records: soft credits save, date of death is optional, online gifts no longer create duplicate donors over email spacing.

- Access and security: tightened checks so department-limited admins, donors and reviewers see and change only what their role allows.

- Accessibility and speed: pop-ups work in Safari with correct focus and screen-reader behavior; reviewer score saves and qualification saves no longer time out at large schools.