Adjusting Affiliation-Based Donor Counts

Affiliation-based leaderboards (such as class year, decade, or other groups) rely on underlying gift and donor data. If class-year totals seem off, you must clean up the donor records rather than trying to manually adjust the counts.

What you can and can't change

The Offline Gifts page offers different tools depending on your campaign. In class‐leaderboard campaigns, you will see two tools: Adjust Overall Donor/Dollar Count for overall totals and Adjust Class Year & Affiliation Data for individual classes or affiliations. In campaigns without a class leaderboard, a single Adjust Overall Donor/Dollar & Affiliation Counts tool appears, featuring fields for each affiliation.

For class‐leaderboard campaigns, use the Adjust Class Year & Affiliation Data tool on the Offline Gifts page to add or subtract donors and dollars for a specific class year or affiliation. This adjustment updates the Class Leaderboard, the Affiliation Breakdown, and any class-specific Matching Donations, but it does not affect overall campaign totals.

Open your campaign in the GiveCampus admin and navigate to Online Giving > Manage Donations > Offline Gifts.

• What you can’t change: You cannot manually edit the donor count for a single class year or any specific affiliation value.
• What you can change: The underlying gifts and donor details. When duplicate donor records are cleaned up (for example, by consolidating records where the same person appears twice), the affiliation-based counts update automatically.

How donor deduplication works

GiveCampus counts unique donors rather than total gifts. Here’s how deduplication is determined:

• Donors are deduplicated by matching both name and email. The matching is case-insensitive—"Alex Johnson" and "alex johnson" are treated as the same donor.
• For multiple offline gifts from the same donor, ensure the records use the same name and email. Although case differences are ignored, spelling variations (such as "Alex" versus "Alexander") will prevent deduplication.
• Offline gifts lacking email addresses will be counted separately until an email is added.
• Adding email addresses to existing offline gifts triggers deduplication and reduces donor counts (including affiliation totals) accordingly.

Adding donors to a class‑year or affiliation count via offline gift upload

If your class‑year or other affiliation participation is low due to missing donor records, you cannot manually adjust the displayed count. Instead, add offline gift records to reflect each donor. Use the bulk upload on the Offline Gifts page to add one donor per row. Set each row’s amount to 0 so the donor is counted without increasing the campaign total.

What to include and why

• One row = one donor. To add a specific number of donors to an affiliation, include that many separate rows—each row creates one offline gift/donor record.
• Set Amount to 0. Blank amounts are excluded from totals; enter 0 to record a donor without adding funds.
• Include an email when possible. Offline gifts without email addresses do not deduplicate. Uploading duplicate records without matching emails creates multiple donor entries.
• Affiliation column details. The Affiliation column must contain the affiliation’s internal column name (for example, "class_year" or "alumni_year"), and the AffiliationValue must match the configured value exactly (for example, "1950" for a class-year leaderboard). Verify the correct column name and available values in your campaign’s affiliation settings.

How to build and upload your file — step‑by‑step

1. Download the sample CSV from your campaign’s Offline Gifts page and open it in a spreadsheet editor as a formatting reference.
2. Populate one donor per row. Provide a unique Name and set Amount to 0; include an Email where possible to enable deduplication.
3. Fill the Affiliation and AffiliationValue columns so they match your campaign’s configuration. For a class‑year leaderboard, AffiliationValue is typically a four-digit year string.
4. Save the file as a CSV with UTF‑8 encoding.
5. Upload the CSV. The system validates that all required columns are present and every row includes a name. If validation fails, an error message will explain the issue. If the file is valid, review the preview screen before finalizing the import.

What happens after a successful upload

Leaderboards, participation percentages, and affiliation counts update automatically after the offline gift records are processed. If you later add or correct email addresses on these records, deduplication will occur according to the rules elsewhere in this article, which may consolidate duplicate records.

Fixing an overcount for a class year (or any affiliation)

If a class year shows too many donors, it usually means one or more donors have been counted twice due to duplicate offline gifts with missing or inconsistent email information:

1. Identify duplicate donors

   • In your campaign or gift list, look for individuals appearing multiple times, especially in offline gifts with missing or inconsistent emails.

2. Standardize duplicate donor details

   • Open each duplicate offline gift record.
   • Ensure the name fields match exactly across records.
   • Add or correct the email address so that each duplicate uses the same email.

3. Save your changes

   • Adding email addresses to existing offline gifts will trigger deduplication.
   • Once the name and email match, the gifts consolidate under a single donor, and the updated class-year counts reflect this change.

Preventing duplicate donors going forward

• Collect an email for every offline gift. Offline gifts without email addresses will not deduplicate.
• Use consistent formatting for names. Choose a standard format (for example, "Katherine" instead of "Kate") and apply it consistently.
• Determine how to handle households. If two people in the same household should count as separate donors, ensure they have distinct emails or names. If they should count as one, use the same name and email consistently.

FAQs

Q: Can I manually reduce donors for just the class of 1999?

A: No. You cannot adjust donor counts for a specific affiliation value like an individual class year. Instead, clean up duplicate donor records by matching both name and email across offline gifts.

Q: We have two offline gifts from the same person and they’re counting as two donors. Why?

When duplicate donor entries occur, it is likely due to missing or mismatched email addresses or names. To correct this, update the records so that both the name and email match exactly. Remember, matching is case-insensitive; however, spelling differences still count as mismatches.

Q: What happens if I add an email to an old offline gift?

A: Adding an email to an existing offline gift triggers deduplication. If the name also matches, the system will consolidate the gifts under a single donor and update affiliation counts accordingly.

Q: We intentionally don’t collect emails for some offline checks. Can those deduplicate?

A: No. Offline gifts without email addresses will not deduplicate. To consolidate such gifts under a single donor, add a consistent email and ensure the name matches exactly.