Understanding Contact Stages and Giving Statistics in DonorDock
DonorDock automatically uses a contact's giving history to determine their Contact Stage and calculate several giving-related statistics. These calculations help you quickly understand where a contact is in their relationship with your organization and are used in reporting throughout DonorDock.
By default, DonorDock uses gifts with the Donation gift type when determining these statistics. Administrators can also customize how long a donor can go without a qualifying gift before they are considered lapsed.
Contact Stages in DonorDock
A contact's stage is automatically determined based on their qualifying gift history.
Contact Stage | How the Stage Is Determined |
|---|---|
Prospect | The contact has no recorded qualifying gifts. |
Donor | The contact has at least one qualifying gift within your organization's active donor period. |
Lapsed | The contact has qualifying historical gifts, but none within your organization's active donor period. |
By default, DonorDock uses a 24-month period to determine whether a contact is considered a Donor or Lapsed.
For example, with the default 24-month setting:
A contact who has never made a qualifying gift is a Prospect.
A contact who made a qualifying gift within the past 24 months is a Donor.
A contact who has made qualifying gifts in the past, but not within the last 24 months, is Lapsed.
Customize When a Donor Is Considered Lapsed
Administrators can adjust how long DonorDock uses to determine when a donor becomes lapsed.
Available options are:
12 months
18 months
24 months
36 months
48 months
To update your organization's lapsed donor timeframe
Log in to DonorDock.
Click the grid icon in the upper-right corner of DonorDock.
Select Settings.
From the options on the left, select Features.
Locate Customize when a donor is considered lapsed.
Select your preferred timeframe from the dropdown.
Click Save at the top of the Organization Settings page.
Once updated, DonorDock will use the selected timeframe when determining whether qualifying contacts should be considered Donors or Lapsed.
Which Gifts Are Included in Contact Calculations?
By default, DonorDock uses gifts with the Donation gift type when determining a contact's stage and several calculated giving statistics.
Other gift types, including Event Tickets, Memberships, and Grants, are not included in these calculations by default.
The qualifying gift types affect several areas of DonorDock, including:
Contact Stage
First Gift Date
Last Gift Date
Largest Gift
LYBNTY and SYBNTY reporting
Donor retention information
Applicable dashboard statistics
Example: How Gift Types Affect a Contact's Statistics
Suppose Jane Doe has the following three gifts:
Gift Type | Gift Date | Amount |
Grant | June 1, 2020 | $400 |
Donation | November 1, 2022 | $500 |
Event Ticket | May 1, 2026 | $1,000 |
Using DonorDock's Default Calculation
By default, only Jane's Donation gift is considered when calculating her contact statistics.
Her calculated information would therefore be based on the November 1, 2022 Donation:
First Gift Date: November 1, 2022
Last Gift Date: November 1, 2022
Largest Gift: $500
If your organization uses the default 24-month lapsed period, Jane would also be considered Lapsed because she has not made a qualifying Donation within the past 24 months.
Her $400 Grant and $1,000 Event Ticket would still appear in her gift history, but they would not affect these calculated contact statistics.
If Additional Gift Types Are Included
If your organization's calculations were updated to include Donations, Grants, and Event Tickets, all three gifts would be considered.
Jane's calculated information would then become:
First Gift Date: June 1, 2020
Last Gift Date: May 1, 2026
Largest Gift: $1,000
Jane would also be considered a Donor because her May 1, 2026 Event Ticket would now qualify as giving activity within the applicable lapsed donor timeframe. The additional qualifying gift types would also be included in applicable retention and dashboard calculations.
Including Additional Gift Types in Your Calculations
You cannot currently change the gift types used for these calculations directly in your DonorDock settings.
If your organization would like DonorDock to consider additional gift types, contact the DonorDock Support team at support@donordock.com.
Our team can update your organization's calculations to include any or all of the additional gift types, such as:
Event Tickets
Memberships
Grants
You can choose which additional gift types make sense for your organization's definition of an active donor.
Consider how your organization views different types of financial engagement before requesting a change. For example, some organizations consider an event ticket purchase part of a donor's active giving relationship, while others prefer to reserve Donor and Lapsed stages specifically for charitable donations.
After the DonorDock Support team updates the qualifying gift types for your organization, DonorDock will recalculate the affected contact statistics throughout your database.
It can take up to 24 hours for all contact stages, statistics, dashboard information, and related calculations to reflect the updated settings.
Changing the calculation does not modify the original gift records or their gift types. A Grant remains a Grant, an Event Ticket remains an Event Ticket, and a Membership remains a Membership. The change only determines whether those gifts are included when DonorDock calculates contact stages and related giving statistics.