Glossary of Filter Terms
Updated over a week ago

This glossary provides a brief description of every available filter term (or "condition"), and gives some clarification on how those conditions might be used.

Many of the conditions are available in both Contacts and Giving, so we will first discuss those that are duplicated - then we will explain the conditions unique to Giving filters.  

Filtering Conditions Available for Both Contacts AND Giving Filters

  • Contact Type: This field differentiates between "individual" contacts (such as individual donors) and "organization" contacts (such as a local business, or another nonprofit organization).

  • Full Name: This should include the full name of the donor or the organization.

  • First Name: This includes the first name of the donor.

  • Last Name: This includes the last name of the donor.

  • Organization Name: This includes the name of the organization, if applicable.

  • Formal Greeting: This includes titles, legal names, suffixes, etc., and is primarily used for mailing lists, addressing envelopes, etc.

  • Informal Greeting: This usually includes a contact's first name or nickname, and is used for the greeting or salutation within direct mail and email communications.

  • Household Name: This is automatically populated for each individual contact and pulls from the "Last Name" field, and is used to address everyone who is part of a specific household (such as "The Smiths").

  • Primary Email: This includes the email that is automatically populated when someone donates online, or the email address where an individual would like to be contacted.

  • Secondary Email: This can include an individual's secondary email, or a spouse's email address (if they've never donated).

  • Work Email: This should include a contact's work email, if applicable.

  • Mobile Phone: This should include a mobile phone number that can receive text messages; it's important that this field include a mobile phone and not a landline, as this is the field that's used to send Text-to-Give, Text-to-Pledge, and other texting communications.

  • Home Phone: This should include a landline or other phone number (such as a secondary cell phone), and can be filtered by area code to find contacts within a specific city or state.

  • Work Phone: This should include a work phone number, if applicable, and can be used to contact donors during business hours.

  • Employer: This should include the name of the donor's employer, and can help when looking at potential sponsorship opportunities or matching gift options.

  • Job Title: This should include a donor's formal job title and can be used to determine if a contact has a useful skillset that can be used in volunteering, or can be used to determine a donor's capacity to give either donations or funds.

  • Gender: This should include the gender by which the contact identifies, in order to segment your contacts for specific communications (like a "ladies' night out" or a gentleman's support group). This field allows for custom entries to allow any gender identity to be recorded.

  • Date of Birth: This should include the contact's date of birth, and can be used to send cards or post social media messages to celebrate your contacts' birthdays.

  • Birthday Month: This should include the contact's birth month, and can be helpful if your organization uses a birthday greetings calendar along to generate related communications.

  • Birthday Within 30 Days: This should use the "date of birth" field to find all contacts who will celebrate a birthday within the next 30 days.

  • Head of Household: This should include all individuals who have been designated as a "head of household", and can be used when you are looking to send specific communications to that particular population of contacts.

Donation History

  • Last Donation Amount: This should be used to determine which of your contacts last gave a specific amount through their last donation, and can be used to help find donors within a certain range for thank you notes, appeals, and possible "upgrade" efforts.

  • Last Donation Date: This should be used to determine which of your contacts haven't given before or since a specific date, and can help determine when you'd like to send another appeal or stewardship-related communication.

  • Days Since Last Donation: This should be used to determine who hasn't given a donation within a set number of days, and can help determine when you'd like to reach out next, or how best to target these donors with your communications.

  • First Donation Date: This can be used to help find donors that first discovered or contributed to your organization within a set period of time, or to send specific communications designed for a specific group of donors (like those within their first 90 days).

  • Days Since First Donation: Similar to the "first donation date" field, you can use this field to help find donors that began contributing to your organization within a specific period of time, and can also help send "anniversary" communications to those donors.

  • Total Donation Amount (Lifetime): This will display how much donors have individually contributed over their lifetime to your organization, and can be used to help segment donors based on their overall giving tiers.

  • Total Donation Amount This Month : This will display how much donors have individually contributed over the last calendar month to your organization, and can be used to help segment donors based on their monthly giving history.

  • Total Donation Amount This Calendar Year: This will display how much donors have contributed during the past calendar year, and can be used to help segment donors based on their giving to-date this year.

  • Total Donation Amount Last Calendar Year: This will display how much donors have contributed during the prior calendar year, and can be a helpful comparison to current giving rates this year (both for individuals and overall).

  • New Recurring Donors: This will display all recurring donors who have set up their recurring donation within the last 30 days, and can be helpful in sending thank-you messages to those who have chosen to contribute regularly.

  • Total Donation Amount (Custom Date Range): This will display a list of donors who have given a specific donation amount within a designated period of time, and can help with communications and recognition for donors who fall within a specific level of giving.

  • Number of Donations (Lifetime): This will display a list of donors who have given a specific number of donations within their lifetime, and can be helpful to help recognize those donors for "milestone" donations (such as 10th, or 50th, donation).

  • Number of Donations (Custom Date Range): Similarly to "number of donations (lifetime)," this will display a list of donors who have given a specific number of donations within a designated period, and can be helpful in finding donors who given often but don't have recurring donations set up.

  • Donated to Campaign/Event: This will determine which donors have donated to a specific campaign or event your organization has run, and can be helpful in inviting donors to contribute to similar campaigns or attend other related events.

  • Pledged to Campaign: This will determine which of your donors have pledged (or committed) to making a donation over a period of time, and can be helpful in communicating with those donors on their current pledge status.

  • Donated to Designation: This will display a list of all of your contacts who donated to a specific mission or cause within your organization, and can help when sending targeted communications for appeal.

  • Purchased Tickets to Event: This will display a list of all contacts who purchased a ticket to a specific event - please note, this doesn't include individuals who donated to that event, or who attended an event as a guest.

  • Number of Tickets Purchased: This will display a list of any contacts who bought a specific number of tickets to an event, and is helpful when determining capacity for those events or identifying possible leaders and/or sponsors for an event.

Email Status

  • Has Unsubscribed Primary Email: This will display a list of all contacts whose primary email address has been unsubscribed from communications, and is most useful to help determine who should be placed on a "do not contact" email list.

  • Has Bounced Primary Email: This will display a list of all contacts whose last email communication returned a "bounced" reply, and is helpful in finding and updating errors in email addresses (or re-subscribing them, if necessary).

  • Can Receive Email Blasts: This will display a list of all contacts who can receive email blasts, and can be helpful in confirming that individuals are either subscribed or unsubscribed correctly.

  • Opened Email Blast (Custom Date Range): This will display a list of all of the contacts who opened an email blast that was sent within a specific date range, and can be helpful in determining who is opening your email communications - and who might be best approached using other stewardship methods.

  • Donor Status: This can be used to find active, lapsed, new, recurring, or new recurring donors, and can be helpful in understanding who your donors are and who may need more personalized communication in regards to that status.

  • Donated Consecutive Years: This will display all donors who have given at least once per year for a specific number of consecutive years, and can help you determine if there are patterns for when those individuals choose to give.

  • Point of Contact for an Organization: This can be used to filter for specific individuals who have been designated as a point of contact for an organization, and can be helpful when looking to appeal to organizations for things like sponsorships.

  • Not in a Group: This can be used to filter for anyone who is not included in any groups that exist within Donor Management, and can be helpful in confirming who should (or shouldn't) be in specific groups.

  • Number of Soft Credits (Custom Date Range): This can be used to identify anyone who has soft credits affiliated with their donor account, and can be helpful in comparing who has soft credits associated with their account if they're reflected as being "lapsed" otherwise.

  • Date Added: This will filter for when specific information was added to Donor Management, and can be helpful in cross-referencing when specific checks or gifts were manually added to Donor Management.

  • Date Updated: This will filter for when specific information was edited in Donor Management, and can be helpful in confirming that specific changes were made to those records.

Home Address

  • Address: This will allow you to filter for a specific contact or record based on the contact's associated address.

  • City: This will allow you to filter for a group of contacts who are located in a specific city, which can help you better target communications for local events.

  • State: This will allow you to filter for a group of contacts who are located in a specific state, which can help target communications relevant to those in a specific geographic area.

  • Zip Code: This will allow you to filter for a group of contacts who are located in a specific zip code, which can help you better target communications for local events.

  • Country: This should display all contacts located within a specific country, which can assist in targeting your donors outside the United States.

  • Distance (In Miles) From Zip Code: This can be used to identify contacts living near your organization's location (which can be found under your "Settings" tab), and can help in targeting specific local audiences who may want to attend nearby events.

Work Address

  • Address (Work): This will allow you to filter for a specific contact or record based on the contact's associated work address.

  • City (Work): This will allow you to filter for a group of contacts whose work is located in a specific city, which can help you better target communications for local events and expand your outreach.

  • State (Work): This will allow you to filter for a group of contacts who work in a specific state, which can help target communications relevant to those in a specific geographic area.

  • Zip Code (Work): This will allow you to filter for a group of contacts who work in a specific zip code, which can help you better target communications for local events.

  • Country (Work): This should display all contacts that work within a specific country, which can assist in targeting your donors who may outside the United States.

  • Distance (In Miles) From Zip Code (Work): This can be used to identify contacts who work near your organization's location (which can be found under your "Settings" tab), and can help in targeting specific local audiences and businesses who may want to attend nearby events.

Group

  • Name: This can be used to filter for someone who is included or excluded from a specific group that you've created in Donor Management.

Notes

  • Content: This can be used to filter for specific keywords included within the "Notes" section of a contact record, and can help search for specific phrases like "volunteer hours".

Contact Custom Fields (yes, they're available as Giving filter conditions too!)

  • Specific Custom Fields: This can be used for you to filter on the information you've collected in a custom field, and can be used for a variety of segmenting and communication-based tasks.

Filtering Conditions Available for Giving Filters Only

Transaction

  • Transaction Type: This can be used to filter between types of transactions within DMS (such as donations, ticket purchases, sponsorships, etc.), and is useful to identify how much of a specific type of transaction was made.

  • Donation Date: This should filter for donations made on (or before or after!) a certain date, and can be helpful when trying to determine who donated during a specific fundraising push.

  • Days Since Donation: This should display donations made after a certain number of days has passed, and can be helpful in identifying donors who may need an additional bit of outreach.

  • Amount: This can be helpful in finding transactions that total a specific amount, or finding transactions above or below a specified amount.

  • Ticket Quantity: This should display which ticket purchases have a specific number of tickets included, which can be helpful if you're looking to generate an accurate head count for an upcoming event.

  • Ticket Type: This allows you to specify which ticket type your contacts may have purchased, and is helpful in determining head counts for specific ticket perks - like if a specific ticket includes a meal or a t-shirt.

  • Payment Method: This can be used to narrow down what specific payment method was used, such as cash or check; it also can be used to filter for things like in-kind donations.

  • Payment Description: This can be used to help filter for specific details within a transaction's description, such as a check number.

  • Source: This allows you to see which transactions were made through certain tools, such as Text-to-Give or a specific email blast, and and can help determine which of these tools is most effective towards your fundraising goals.

  • Notes: This can be used to find all transactions that have a note affiliated with them, or to filter for specific keywords within those notes.

  • Donor Covered Fee: This can be used to narrow down which transactions had their transaction fees covered by the donor, and can be helpful for reconciliation with your donation disbursements.

  • Has Tribute: This can be used to find transactions that included a "tribute," and is helpful for making sure that the recipient of that tribute is appropriately notified.

  • Acknowledged: This allows you to see which of your transactions have been acknowledged in Donor Management, and which ones may still need to be acknowledged. This is especially helpful in making sure you're promptly thanking your donors for their gifts.

  • Recurring: This can be used to find all donors who have set up online recurring donations through Fundraising Pages, and is helpful in keeping track of who has these types of transactions scheduled.

  • Recurring Frequency: This can further narrow down those recurring donations by how frequently the donations are made, and can help communicate with that population of donors on the appropriate time schedule.

  • Online Transaction: This can be used to filter specifically for transactions made online, as opposed to offline transactions (like cash or a check).

  • Has Soft Credit: This can be used to find all transactions that are associated with a soft-credited donation, which can be helpful when reporting on soft credits, or appropriately thanking both donors for their contribution.

Tribute

  • Name: This can be used to find all transactions that are associated with a specific tribute. This can be helpful if you are looking for a group of donations all made towards a specific tribute, especially if you'd like to notify those being honored.

  • Notification Method: This can be used to determine which option someone has selected to notify their designated tribute recipient, which can be helpful in providing the correct delivery method for recognition.

  • Donation Custom Fields: This can be used for you to filter on the information you've collected in a custom field, and can be used for a variety of segmenting and communication-based tasks.

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