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.

Quick answers

You cannot manually adjust donor counts for a specific affiliation such as an individual class year.
Donors are deduplicated based on both name and email.
To deduplicate multiple offline gifts from the same donor, ensure both gifts have identical name and email information.
Offline gifts without email addresses will not deduplicate.
Adding email addresses to existing offline gifts will trigger deduplication.

What you can and can't change

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 based on matching both name and email.
For multiple offline gifts from the same donor, ensure both records have identical name and email.
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.

Tip: Consistency matters. For example, "Alex Johnson" and "Alexander Johnson" will not deduplicate unless both the name and email match exactly.

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.

Required CSV columns

Include the following columns in your CSV file (header names are case-insensitive; spaces are normalized):

name, email, affiliation, affiliation_value, designation_identifier, amount, state, zip_code

For campaigns with multiple affiliations, also include columns for affiliation2, affiliation2_value through affiliation6, affiliation6_value.

Download the sample CSV from the Offline Gifts page in your campaign to verify the exact column format.

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

Download the sample CSV from your campaign’s Offline Gifts page and open it in a spreadsheet editor as a formatting reference.
Populate one donor per row. Provide a unique Name and set Amount to 0; include an Email where possible to enable deduplication.
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.
Save the file as a CSV with UTF‑8 encoding.
Open your campaign in the GiveCampus admin and navigate to Manage Donations > Offline Gifts.
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.

Common gotchas and troubleshooting tips

Blank Amount vs. 0: A blank Amount excludes the record from totals; always enter 0 to count a donor without adding dollars.
Incorrect Affiliation details: If the Affiliation or AffiliationValue does not match the campaign settings, the donor will not be assigned to the expected group. Verify the exact values in your affiliation settings.
Deduplication relies on name and email: Duplicate rows without matching emails are counted as separate donors. Ensure emails are provided to consolidate duplicate records.
One donor per row: Do not use a column to indicate quantity. Each row represents an individual donor.

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:

Identify duplicate donors
- In your campaign or gift list, look for individuals appearing multiple times, especially in offline gifts with missing or inconsistent emails.
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.
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?

A: This is likely because an email is missing or differs between the gifts, or the names do not match exactly. To deduplicate, ensure that both gifts have identical name and email details.

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.