Consistent (Not Consecutive) Donors Options in 2022?

Bobby Steurer

You all know where this is going…

There have been many posts and inquiries in these forums over the years, and many votes for any easy method of pulling CONSISTENT (not consecutive) donors over a given amount of time.

The two options available now both involve moving/formatting/Pivot Tabling data manually in Excel. To get that raw Excel data, you have to set up some pretty lengthy, CPU-smackdowning Exports in RE.

I'm doing a big project involving consistent donors from 1970-2022. I'm Exporting all of this using Summary Information, and basically plan to leave my computer on through the night/tomorrow to finish exporting. Guess I'll tackle the formatting of the Excel doc next week.

It's 2022. Are there ANY easier methods yet? I know you can see total number of years giving at-a-glance on a record-by-record basis in webview. Is there no option to pull that number into a webview List?

Melanie Lachcik

@Bobby Steurer Can you explain a little more what you mean by consistent? What type of consistency indicators are you looking for?

Bobby Steurer

@Melanie Lachcik Thanks for responding, Melanie. I guess a better descriptor would've been “total number of years giving.” I've got a large set of donors I've queried, and I'm looking for: “How many years total of the past 50 years has each of these individuals given?”

Daniel R. Snyder

@Bobby Steurer At the moment I am not sure there are easier methods. I was needing to do this export for our annual donor report each year, but I now have a Power Automate flow to update this information in attributes/custom fields so I can export it. I did have to do one huge import at the beginning, but it is now updating itself.

However, seeing that you are looking at just the past 50 years, not all time this may not help.

Nicholas Mascari

@Bobby Steurer
This isn't a solution since Blackbaud lacks the tools to do it automatically, but I may be able to give a more efficient process (if this allows you to use less steps, that should translate to shorter wait/load times).

For using the Summary Information field, I'd break down the 50 years into sections:

Total Number of Gifts given > 5 | Gift Date between 1-1-2010 and 1-1-2020
Total Number of Gifts given > 5 | Gift Date between 1-1-2000 and 1-1-2010
etc.
Obviously you can use whatever numbers you like. It depends on what you define as a “Consistent” donor.

I'd avoid using something like
Total Number of Gifts given > 5 | Gift Date between 1-1-1970 and 1-1-2020
Since this can also grab someone who has given 5+ gifts between 2019-2020. I assume you want to see people who have been giving over the past 50 years, just not consecutively.

Then just output the Constituent ID + Gift Date + Whatever else you want/need
Export to excel

In Excel, format your dataset into a table
Make a new column with the function =YEAR(B2) [B = Gift Date Column]
Go to Data → Remove Duplicates
Select the ID column and the new column you made with the function

This will remove all duplicate IDs based on the ID and Years, you should be left with each individual person with every unique year they've given.

Make a new column with the function =COUNTIF(A:A, A2) [A = ID Column]

This will give you the number of times that a person appears in your table. Since we've left them with every unique year, the resulting number of this function will give you the total number of years that they've given within that 50 year span.

Faith Murray

@Nicholas Mascari, just clarifying, you mean that it will output the total number of year "chunks" (decades) that each donor has donated? Based on the output I don't think it will give actual number of years. Pulling off # gifts per decade, a person who gave 3 gifts in 2009 and then one in 2012 will show the same as a donor who gave once each year in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Or, do you mean to have export output “Gift Date” as in ALL individual gift dates (being careful to include a large output limit)?