Managing Designations in Tiered Campaigns to Prevent Cross-Counting

If donations are appearing on multiple tier pages, it's because you're using the same designation across multiple groups. Each tier needs its own unique designations to prevent cross-counting. Instead of sharing designations like "Other" across tiers, create unique ones like "Athletics - Other" and "Academics - Other."

How Designation Groups and Designations Work

When a donor selects a designation that exists in multiple groups, their donation will count toward ALL tier pages that include that designation.

Example of the problem: Tier 1 (Athletics): Contains designations "Football," "Basketball," "Other" Tier 2 (Academics): Contains designations "Scholarships," "Library," "Other" A donor gives to "Other" → Their donation appears on BOTH the Athletics and Academics tier pages 

Why Shared Designations Appear on Multiple Pages

The platform tracks donations by designation ID, not by which group contains it. If the same designation appears in multiple groups, the system counts that donation toward every tier page that includes a group with that designation.

This is working as designed - the system assumes shared designations are intentionally meant to benefit multiple areas.

Creating Unique Designations for Each Tier

Step 1: Identify Shared Designations Review your designation groups and identify any designations with identical names across different tiers.

Common shared designations that cause issues: "Other" "General Fund" "Unrestricted" "Where most needed" 

Step 2: Create Tier-Specific Designations Replace shared designations with unique ones that clearly identify their tier:

Instead of: Multiple tiers using "Other" Use: "Athletics - Other" "Academics - Other" "Alumni Programs - Other" Instead of: Multiple tiers using "General Fund" Use: "Athletics General Fund" "Student Services General Fund" "Campus Improvements General Fund" 

Step 3: Update Your Designation Groups 1. Remove the shared designations from all groups 2. Add the new unique designations to their appropriate groups 3. Test by making sample donations to verify they only appear on the intended tier pages

Best Practices for Tiered Campaign Structure

Use descriptive names: Make it clear which tier each designation belongs to Maintain consistency: Use the same naming pattern across all tiers (e.g., "Department - Purpose") Plan ahead: Design your designation structure before launching to avoid confusion

After you remove a shared designation: refreshing totals

After you remove a shared designation or replace it with tier-specific designations, the totals on Tier 2 pages might still appear inflated for a short time. This happens because cached and background-calculated values can delay the update.

What to do after applying the designation fix

1. Wait and reload the page: Wait a few minutes after making the change, then reload the Tier 2 page to check the updated totals.

2. Test with a sample donation (optional): Make a small test donation using one of the new tier-specific designations and verify that it appears only on the intended page.

3. If the totals still appear incorrect: If the totals remain inflated after waiting, the cached values may need to be recomputed. GiveCampus support can trigger a manual campaign total refresh to update the totals and donor counts.

What the refresh does and what to expect

• The manual refresh recalculates the campaign's giving totals and donor counts, ensuring that donations are attributed only to the correct tier.
• After the refresh, reload the pages to verify that the totals and donor counts reflect the updated designation configuration and any test donations.

Quick troubleshooting checklist

• Confirm that the shared designation was removed from all groups where it shouldn’t appear.
• Wait several minutes and reload the Tier 2 page before drawing conclusions about the totals.
• If the totals remain off, a manual campaign total refresh can be requested to recalculate the cached values.

Why this step matters

Removing shared designations correctly updates how gifts are attributed, but the displayed totals may not update immediately due to caching. A manual refresh helps ensure the UI accurately reflects your updated designation structure.