Understanding your Advocate, Guest-Fundraiser, and Should-Be-Donor Reports – GiveCampus University

Beyond knowing who gave to your campaign through your donation report, GiveCampus provides reporting on who almost completed a gift to your campaign as well as who inspired others to give. This article outlines the ins and outs of the Advocate Report, Should Be Donor Report, and Guest Fundraisers Report.

Advocate Report

Advocates are an important part of the success of a GiveCampus campaign. As an Administrator, you can easily track the activities of your Advocates through the 'Advocate Report.' This report, allows you to easily see how many dollars and donors each Advocate generated as well as information about matches, challenges, and pleas they created. On this report you will also see detailed information for any unique links you have created and used in your marketing efforts throughout the campaign.

This information is especially important if you have created incentives that are tied to Advocacy (e.g. # of donors or dollars generated via their outreach).

To access this report, go to your Administrator Dashboard on the 'Campaigns' tab. Under the Reports column, click the button that says 'Advocates.'

The report includes columns with the following headings:

user_id: Advocate's GiveCampus user ID
name: title of unique link
email: Advocate's email
admin_link: t = admin created 'unique tracking link', f = volunteer outreach*
clicks: Number of clicks generated by the Advocate
clickdonors: Number of donors generated by Advocate
clickdollars: Dollars generated by Advocate
plea: t = personal videos created by Advocate
matchdonors: Number of donors who were matched by Advocate
matchdollars: Total dollars matched by Advocate
matchmax: Maximum match offered by Advocate
matched_donors: Names of donors matched by Advocate
matchanon: t = match was anonymous
chgiven: Total challenge dollars given by Advocate
chanon: t = challenge was anonymous
total: Total dollars, inclusive of matches and challenges, the advocate brought in
donor_names: Names of all donors generated by Advocate
constituent_id: Advocates constituent id uploaded to the platform
advocate_name: Name of Advocate
admin_link_description: Description of unique link
sharing_gift_ids: Donation id of those that donated by clicking on Advocate’s unique link
sharing_emails: Donor emails of those that donated by clicking on Advocate’s unique link
match_gift_ids: Donation ids of the gifts the Advocate matched
match_emails: Donor emails of the gifts the Advocate matched
challenge_emails: Donor emails of those who qualified for the Advocate’s challenge
challenge_ids: Donation ids of those who qualified for the Advocate’s challenge
advocate_match_ids: Donation id of the Advocate’s match
advocate_challenge_ids: Donation id of the Advocate’s challenge
advocate_gave_full_amount: Donation id of the Advocate's match or challenge, t = Advocate selected to give the full amount of their match or challenge upon creation, even if the full terms were not met

View a sample of the report here.

* Unique tracking links that you can create as an Admin are tracked in the Advocates Report. If there is a 't' in this column, it means that the information is a result of that

Guest Fundraisers Report

Now that you know who your advocates are, the next question is: who is sharing the campaign while not logged into or signed up for a GiveCampus account? Individuals will appear on the Guest Fundraiser's Report if they make a gift and then after making their gift click on the sharing buttons on the Thank You page and share the campaign. It is important to note that donors will only appear within the Guest Fundraisers report if they share the campaign using the sharing buttons on the Thank You page. Individuals who are not logged into an account and share the campaign in another way (such as through the sharing buttons under your campaign video) will not appear on this report.

To download your Guest Fundraisers Report, go to your administrator dashboard > navigate to the ‘campaigns’ tab > find your preferred campaign > and download the report from the ‘Reports’ drop-down menu.

This report includes columns with the following headings:

payer_name: the name entered on the giving form
payer_email: the email address entered on the giving form
count: how many donors gave as a result of sharing
amount: how many dollars were generated as a result of sharing

View a Sample Report here

Once you’ve identified who your guest fundraisers are, what’s next? While these individuals may not have been official advocates for your past campaign, they were, nonetheless, spreading the word for your campaign and inspiring their peers through sharing. Because of their enthusiasm for sharing the campaign and rallying peer-to-peer support, guest fundraisers are great candidates to recruit to be volunteers and advocates for future campaigns. Once equipped with the guidance on how to take advantage of GiveCampus’ advocacy features, these guest fundraisers will be rock stars advocates!

Should-be Donors Report

Wondering who almost made a gift to your campaign but never quite crossed the finish line? The ‘Should-be Donors Report’ is a comprehensive list of the ones who got away.

Within the Should-be Donors report, you will find information on who clicked on the ‘Make a Gift’ button, began filling out information, clicked ‘go to checkout’, but did not submit the payment form and successfully make a gift.

If a donor’s payment fails checkout, they will appear on the Should-be Donors report until they fix any errors to their payment method and successfully complete their gift, at which point their name will be removed from this report.

The Should-be Donors report can be located by going to your administrator dashboard > navigating to the ‘campaigns’ tab > finding your preferred campaign > and downloading the report from the ‘Reports’ drop-down menu.

Within this report includes columns with the following headings:

payer_name: the name entered on the giving form
payer_email: the email address entered on the giving form
value: the gift amount entered
designation: if applicable, the designation where the donor indicated to direct their gift
zipcode: the zip code entered by the donor
addr_city: the city entered by the donor
addr_state: the state entered by the donor
created_at: the time when the donor began filling the giving form out
failure_reason: if the gift failed checkout, the reason for this failure

View a sample of the report here

Have you ever left an item “in your cart” while online shopping and then received an email nudge asking you if you’d like to return to check out? The Should-be Donors report can help you make just this type of nudge by identifying donors who were close to making their gift but never quite followed through- either due to a gift failure, distraction, or indecision. More generally, the Should-be Donors report will provide you with a sense of who is inclined to give back but has yet to do so. We do not recommend using it in real time as many donors will in fact come back after a failed attempt (perhaps they entered the wrong zip code), complete the gift and then, ultimately, fall off the report.

You may be wondering how quickly a donor will "fall off" the report if they do return to make a gift. This should happen within minutes, as long as:

1. The donation is made to the same campaign that the Should-be Donors report is on.

2. The gift is in any one of the following four states: "recurring," "authorized," "pending_authorization," or "paid."

3. The email addresses of both the attempted and completed donations are exactly the same (case sensitive).

With these reports in your tool box, you’ll be have a better idea of who within your community is inclined to give, share, and inspire, and you’ll be poised to leverage this information for future donor outreach.

Managing Should-Be Donors Report Entries

Can "Should Be Donors" Be Removed from the Report?

No, individual "should be donors" entries cannot be manually removed from the report. These entries will automatically disappear from the report only when one of these conditions is met:

The donor returns and completes their gift using the same email address
The donor successfully makes a payment after fixing any checkout errors
The entry ages out of the system after remaining unprocessed for an extended period

Common Scenarios for Should-Be Donors

You may see legitimate should-be donors entries for:

Donors who started online but switched to offline giving (mailing checks)
Donors who realized they should use a different campaign and abandoned their original payment
Donors experiencing technical difficulties during checkout

Why Manual Removal Isn't Available

The should-be donors report is designed to capture genuine incomplete transactions that represent potential follow-up opportunities. Manual removal could eliminate valuable prospect data for stewardship and donor recovery efforts.

Automatic Nudge Emails for Should-Be Donors

Should-be donors are individuals who start the checkout process but do not complete their donation. To convert these near-complete opportunities, an automatic nudge email is sent 30–60 minutes after the incomplete transaction—provided that your campaign or form settings enable this feature. In particular, the Incomplete Gift Nudge template must be activated for the email to be dispatched. This can be found in Giving Experience> Gift Confirmation Emails. When enabled, should-be donors receive a customizable nudge email prompting them to finish their gift. Even if automatic nudge emails are not activated, you can still manually follow up as needed.

Get a gift-by-gift donor list with advocate attribution

Use your standard donation report to export detailed gift-level data, including which advocate drove each gift.

How to add advocate attribution to donation reports

Go to Reporting > Settings.
Under Gift Info, enable the advocate_title column.

The export will include:

Each gift listed on its own row.
An advocate_title column showing the advocate's name for each gift.

Tip: Use this view when you need a donor-by-donor breakdown by advocate rather than aggregate totals.

How names and emails display for campaign-added advocates

In the school-level Advocates Report, if you add someone at the campaign level using their email address and they don’t already have a GiveCampus account, the report now shows their actual name and displays their correct email address instead of "N/A." Previously, these entries appeared as "guest" with an email of "N/A," making follow-up more challenging.

To download the Advocates Report CSV for a campaign:

Go to Campaigns in your administrator dashboard.
Locate your campaign in the table.
In the Reports column, click the "Advocate" button.

Who can access the Should-be Donors report

Users with Campaign Admin or Gift Management Admin roles can access the Should-be Donors report. This update expands access beyond the previous limitation to only those with reporting permissions.
You can download the report from the 'Reports' drop-down menu on the campaign admin table as well as from the 'Reports' drop-down on giving form admin tables.
This change aligns the Should-be Donors report with other gift-related reports, ensuring that gift managers see the same options as campaign administrators.