How to handle one-time donors without creating individual records

Maureen Kelly

We are the beneficiary of a 5/10k sponsored by a University student association. These donors register for the race by making a $10 gift online through a web page that I create (www.cradlefoundation.org/gsa)  - they are not prospects or real donors to our group, just registering for the race. We spend a lot of time creating full constituent records in RE for them in order to enter their gift but they receive no mail, just emails but they often opt out of emails right away.


I am trying to see if there is a different way we can do this, so that the batch is entered but perhaps not tied to individual records? We have a constituent called "Miscellaneous", which is where we record donations of cash that might be collected at an event (for example, tips we receive from a coatcheck.) Could we lump in all of the online gifts from the race into one gift, and enter it in the Miscellaneous record? I have of course have to speak with our Finance folks about this, but I wodnered if anyone has handled a situation like this and can provide advice.


Thanks so much

Sharla Donohue

I have a split opinion on this. My first thought is that you never know which of these participants are going to become donors; it may only be handful, but one of them might be your next major donor!  I would create a specific constituent code for these participants. Send them one or two targeted emails that speaks to their experience at the event and what it means to your organization. If they don't move to the next level, then suppress them from print mail. But email is so inexpensive, why not keep emailing?  It would also give you some metrics to determine conversion rates of the event participants and maybe some ideas on how to develop a targeted cultivation plan to convert them to donors.

On the other hand, if you really don't want to include them in your donor database, you might also consider using some sort of crowd-funding or third party site that would collect the registration and donor info, but just send your organization a lump sum.  Many of these sites will handle the receipting too.  There are a million of them out there!  And if you wanted to send out a thank you email after the event to encourage further engagement, you would likely have access to that from the admin portal of whatever site you chose. You may not have that option if you lumped all of the registration fees into the Miscellaneous record.

JoAnn Strommen

Sharla gave great reasons for the two options. 


When we had a run a few years ago, we entered each record. Many were already in RE but of the new ones, many have been inactive since.  If you want to individually issue them a receipt in RE, you'd need a record.  (For me that brings up another question, is full registration fee a gift?  Did they receive stuff?)


If you were interested in tracking who participated instead of your Miscellaneous record, you could create a record with the name of the race and enter the participants with a relationship, but not their own record.  This should work for also sending them specific mail/email too.  Just another thought.

Evan Rodwell

I use the Event module for this.  I'd record the attendees as non-constituent participants in the event, and then have the donations in the Miscellaneous constituent record.  The donations can even be linked to the participants, so that if any of them do become donors or full constituents for any other reason in the future, that history is retained.

Zane Magnuson 2

I strongly, strongly recommend creating full records for them. If you're at a point where you want just a record of the gift without any personal records of these folks, you really have nothing to lose. You can send these folks all the e-mails and direct mail you want, and some of them may convert and some may get annoyed and not interact ever again. You're still getting additional participation from at least some people, which wouldn't be the case if you just ignored them entirely.


The classic example of layers of constituent circles is very relevant in this case, and it's in the organization's best interest to give constituents a path to easily transition from more distant relationships with the organization to more direct involvement. Here's one example (from a "...for Dummies" book, I think):




If they want to opt out of mailings or e-mail, they can. There's nothing wrong with that. But you should always try to reach out and follow up with people if they've become involved with you (even if they've only attended a one-off event). The reason you do this is because your well of inner-circle folks will dry up eventually, and you will need to continually replenish it. Non-donors becoming donors. Donors becoming members and volunteers. Members/volunteers becoming committee members/major donors. Committee members/major donors becoming planned giving prospects and Board members.


Of course, all of this is coming from the perspective of a database guy. I like data, and I think more data is always better (as long as it's organizaed well). So when someone says "Eh, I don't think we want records of these people", all kinds of flashing lights and loud alarms start going off in my head. Lol

John Cioni

Excellent point Zane! We have situations where we'll do a mailer to help bring in donations for an Endowed Scholarship. We include the option for payroll deduction but we know most of these people are going to send one check and they're done, but if we treat them as a "one-time donor" that removes any prospect of potentially soliciting for another campaign. 

Karen Stuhlfeier

I would add them and I would import in their new records to save time. We enter a fair number of tribute gifts from people who will probably never be donors, but we give them a record with the constituent code of Memorial Gift Acquaintance so we can easily exclude them from mailings if we want to. Sometimes they become donors. 


A gift needs to go on a constituent record in order for financial reports to work properly and balance with your finance department. I don't know how you would ever get around that.

Amy Matthews

I'm also in favor of creating a full constituent record for each donor/participant, with a specific constituent code for easy segmenting.


If your conversion rate from event participant to regular donor is very low (which is typical) you might want to look at setting a different goal for this group.  Rather than trying to get them to become regular cash donors, maybe try reaching out to them to participate in other events that you have going on, or create their own team at your next event. They might be excellent social media advocates for your organization, or good prospects for volunteering. By building a relationship with them based on what they're interested in doing with your organization, you can expand your community.

Debra Holcomb

We have a situation similar to yours where we solicit small donations on a day that's ordinarily free to the public for admission. These visitors are not usually interested in being added to our mailing list and we do give them the option if they choose to be.  Since this activity happens a few times a year, we have created a constituent record with that name of the activity and add the total of the gifts as a whole to that record.  We also have an appeal with the same name and create packages for different dates.  It's easy for me to compare year-over-year with all of the data on just one record.


We've been doing this for years and have never had anyone come back to me and say "How come you didn't give me a record in the donor database?" and those who are interested are given other opportunities to connect with us.  While we wish everyone was philanthropic, that's not the case.  We don't create a constituent record (unless they give enough to require a receipt), as most guests consider this simply a transaction, not a donation.

Christine Cooke 2

a donor record called "Miscellaneous Income from ___ Event" and put it all in there. 


I have done this for events when I do not have names attached to the $$, or if it is something like you are describing where you KNOW they will never roll over into or are treated like regular donors.