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Online Giving Personalization

Updated

*We’ve created a new Personalization Workflow! Personalization is now integrated into segments in GC Outreach. Instead of uploading multiple separate files, you can now configure personalization within each segment—choose donor greetings, preview the experience, and export or send outreach from one place. Learn more here!

GiveCampus Personalization makes giving forms feel personal for donors while making it easier for your team to collect, reconcile, and manage donor information.

  • For Donors: Personalization helps them feel recognized by greeting them by name and skipping fields you already know. This makes the giving process quick and frictionless.
  • For Gift Processing Teams: It delivers the data you need for reporting and reconciliation, while keeping the form experience simple.

Table of Contents

  1. Why Personalization Matters
  2. What Is Personalization?
  3. Getting Started: Uploading Data
    • Exploring the Constituents Section
  4. Personalization Tokens
    • Downloading Tokens
    • Filtering Exports
    • Using Tokens with Email Providers
  5. Personalized Donor Greetings
    • Privacy Considerations
    • How Greetings Appear in Reporting
  6. Post-Payment Forms and Donor Updates
    • Option 1: Default Update Fields
    • Option 2: Create Your Own Fields
  7. Updating Constituent Records
  8. FAQs

Why Personalization Matters

Analysis of GiveCampus form data shows:

  • Each additional text field decreases conversion by 1.2%.
  • Making a field required decreases conversion by another 1.2%.

Donors want a quick, seamless, one-click giving experience. Schools, however, need detailed donor information for reconciliation. Personalization balances both needs: fewer form fields for donors, accurate data for schools.

What Is Personalization?

Personalization customizes the donation experience while ensuring your institution receives the data required for reporting. It also integrates with marketing tools like Emma, Constant Contact, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

There are two types of personalization, both of which require uploading constituent data to GiveCampus:

Pass-Through Personalization

Hides fields on the form if the donor’s information is already uploaded.

  • Example: If Jenny Smith’s address is uploaded, the address field won’t appear during her donation, but it will still be recorded in reporting.
  • Benefits: Enables one-click donations while still capturing data, with updates collected after payment if needed.

Experience Personalization

Customizes the donor’s journey with:

  • Personalized greetings.
  • Pre-filled amounts and designations based on past giving.

Together, these two approaches create faster donations and cleaner reporting.

Getting Started: Uploading Data

Upload constituent data into the School Level Data Importer:

  • Navigate to School Dashboard > Data Import > Import Files.

You can update:

  • Full constituent records via the Data Importer.
  • Select fields (e.g., greetings, designations) via the Data Upload section of Personalization.

Exploring the Constituents Section

Once data is uploaded, the Constituents section lets you:

  • Search and sort data by name, email, or constituent ID.
  • Validate that uploads were successful.

Personalization Tokens

A personalization token is a unique ID for each constituent. Tokens are:

  • Used in URLs to identify the donor.
  • Required for personalized experiences and reporting.
  • Stable across uploads (unless multiple tags are added).
  • Found in the adid column of your exports.

You can use tokens in GC Outreach or export them for your external email platform.

Downloading Tokens

In School Dashboard > Personalization > Constituents, you can:

1. Download tokens only:

  • Select All Giving Forms in the dropdown.
  • Download the merge fields CSV.
  • Append tokens manually to form URLs (adid=TOKEN).

2. Download tokens already appended to URLs:

  • Select a specific form in the dropdown.
  • Click Get Personalization Tokens.
  • Use the pre-built links from the gf_url column.

Filtering Exports

You can export tokens for a segment of constituents using filters:

  • Designation Name: Pull only constituents tied to a specific designation.
  • Tags: Label donors for segmentation (e.g., “Giving Day 2023 Donor”).

Important: Uploading multiple tags for one constituent generates multiple tokens.

Filters can be combined (e.g., “Giving Day 2023 Donor” + “Climate Project”), but multiple tags cannot be used within a single filter.

Using Tokens with Email Providers

Personalization tokens work best with:

  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud
  • MyEmma
  • Constant Contact
  • Blackbaud Luminate Online
  • Hubspot

⚠️ Not supported by certain Blackbaud products or iModules (which don’t allow links as merge tokens).

General steps:

  1. Add the token to each constituent’s record.
  2. Insert the merge field into your email content, appending the token to the giving form URL.

Helpful links:

Note: If you re-upload data to GiveCampus, tokens stay the same—only the filled data changes. The exception: multiple tags for one constituent = new tokens.

Personalized Donor Greetings

You can upload a custom greeting for each donor (up to 140 characters).

  • Great for thanking donors for past support or using segmented, personal language.

Privacy Considerations

Because donors don’t log in to view greetings:

  • Do not include personally identifiable information (PII).
  • GiveCampus cannot validate this content—you must ensure it’s safe.

How Greetings Appear in Reporting

When donors give via a personalized link:

  • All fields you’ve set to “pass through” (e.g. name, spouse, address) appear in reporting.
  • Gift processors can reconcile gifts using this data.

For pass-through fields to appear:

  1. The field must exist on the pre-payment form.
  2. You must include it in the data upload.

Donors can also update these fields after giving via the post-payment form.

Post-Payment Forms and Donor Updates

The post-payment form allows donors to update their information after checkout. You can configure it in two ways:

Option 1: Default Update Fields

  • By default, update fields appear for any uploaded pass-through data (except external ID, amount, designation).
  • Example: If you upload phone, street, and ZIP, the post-payment form will ask:
    “Have you recently moved or do you need to update any contact info?”
  • Updates appear in reporting as new columns (update_phone, update_address1, etc.).

Option 2: Create Your Own Fields

If you want more control:

  1. Go to Giving Forms > Form Settings > Forms > Post-Payment Form > Personalization Update Fields and uncheck Display Update Fields.
  2. Use the form builder to add the fields you want.

Example:

  • You only want phone numbers updated.
  • Turn off defaults, add a single phone number field.
  • For reporting:
    • Keep the same column name to overwrite old data.
    • Use a new column name to store updated data separately.

Updating Constituent Records

You can update constituent records in three ways:

  1. Upload a new CSV via the Data Importer (updates token with new info).
  2. Data Upload (Personalization > Data Upload): update fields like affiliations, greetings, and designations. (Note: email/address must be updated via Data Importer.)
  3. Quick updates (Personalization > Constituents): edit ask amount, designation backend ID, greeting, or tags directly.

FAQs

Does uploading via Data Importer generate tokens automatically?
Yes, as long as required columns are present.

What happens if I upload multiple tags for a constituent?
Each tag generates a separate token.

Do I have to use the Data Importer?
Yes. Beginning September 2024, all Personalization imports must use the Data Importer.

What fields can I update via Data Upload (.csv)?

  • Ask amount
  • Display name (e.g., change “Jane Doe” to “Jane & John Doe” for greetings)
  • Greeting message
  • Tags
  • Affiliations (up to 4)
  • Designations (name or backend ID, up to 4)

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