Dynamic segmentation

Rebecca McCormick

Hi,

I am wondering how others store dynamic segmentation of their donors. For example, I have a segmentation hierarchy, and I want to be able to put this dynamic segmentation field into RE somewhere as I want it to update automatically based on the giving of the donor and how they move into and out of the segments.

thoughts and ideas welcome.

thanks

Alex Wong

@Rebecca McCormick
If you are on RE NXT, then SKY API and SKY Add-in is available to you. If you or your team has expertise (or willing to learn, OR pay for a Blackbaud Partner to do it for you), then you can create a custom tile is is loaded whenever a constituent page is loaded that showcase dynamically calculated donor segmentation based on “real” (or close to real) time giving data of the constituent. I have created this for my org's Giving Society based on cash given (direct and soft credit) in the year.

Rebecca McCormick

Thanks @Alex Wong.

I was hoping to not have to use an API or plug in to do this, so would really like it if any other solutions were available.

I may have to just continue exploring.

Alex Wong

@Rebecca McCormick
if what you want is automatic update, then API would be the only route.

You can try to check out Blackbaud market place and see if there is already a Blackbaud partner that created such automation.

Christine Robertson 4

@Rebecca McCormick Where do you want to see this information? I ask because I think you can likely accomplish much of this with dynamic queries and the segmentation function in Mail (under Quick Letters). You can set up all of the queries as dynamic, link them to the Quick Letters and use an Appeal/Package or Output Queries to show which segment the constituents fell into. It isn't automated, but once you've set it up, you can run it fairly quickly.

Joe Moretti 3

@Rebecca McCormick If your criteria for segments is based on giving, then that is your segmentation, not need to add any new segment names. According to what you are asking your segment seems to be based on giving, so that is your segmentation and it will always update when the constitituents move thru their giving. Example: Giving of $25 to $99.99, $100 to 499.99, etc. Each of these will be your query that can be placed in the RE Mailing Segment or however you want to do this. When criteria is based on giving, no need to create extra coding.

Alex Wong

I will put some light into why I responded the way I did.

Rebeccca original post was asking for a way to put into RE somewhere the dynamic segmentation that's based on giving.

This is actually something that I just completed, which is Giving Society, very similiar. $10K+ is SILVER, $25K+ is GOLD, $100K+ is PLATINUM, in annual cash giving. The question from “above” is “how will a fundraiser easily tell which level the donor is in”.

So I provided 3 paths for the consideration:

1. No tag used (no constituent code, no constituent attribute/custom fields)
   1. We can create a query/export that has the $10K+ but less than $25K, $25K+ but less than $100K, and $100K+.
   2. Pro: nothing extranous anyone needs to do, report is ran, look for your donor. If fundraiser wants to know from constituent record/webview page, they will have to look at the giving history, and do some quick math (if only a few gift) or export the gift and sum up (if there are dozens of gift)
   3. Con: well pretty obvious, not easy to see quickly what level the donor is at
2. Use a tag (constituent custom field)
   1. Requires running of the previous steps' said query/export and do a global add/change or import to tag the constituent as SILVER/GOLD/PLATINUM, this will need to be ran daily/weekly/monthly etc to keep things up to date
   2. Pro: fundraiser can easily tell someone is at a particular level (with the lag time of the refresh) without having to run query/export and lookup the constituent or do math
   3. Con: resource intensive depending on interval of refresh, someone from CRM/DB team will have to do this work manually
3. Custom Tile with SKY API / SKY Add-in
   1. A custom tile with the Giving Society information is dynamically created using latest giving data the moment the constituent page is loaded showing the level
   2. Pro: fundraiser can easily tell someone is at a particular level (near real time giving data). not resource intensive as there is no one that need to run report and do import to tag constituent
   3. Con: need programming expertise with SKY API and SKY Add-in, once done, will forever work (until Giving Soceity definition change).

So for those that is interested and on the fence, here's a look at what the custom tile looks like for my org

Dariel Dixon 2

This is ?@Alex Wong. I love this custom tile.

Ryan Carr 4

@Alex Wong
Did you build that custom tile through Power Automate? I am looking to do something similar, calculating a constituent's “campaign” giving total, but not seeing where to customize the data beyond total giving.

Alex Wong

@Ryan Carr
yes, it's created with Power Automate with a HTTP trigger using the Adaptive Card SPA.

Ryan Carr 4

@Alex Wong

I have the card built, just having an issue with the data. Are you dynamically building the “2023 Giving” data number in Power Automate, or are you retrieving that data point from another source?

Alex Wong

@Ryan Carr
the annual cash giving is dynamically generated within the flow that creates the card

Miki Martin

@Rebecca McCormick are you talking about giving levels from something like the Donor Category tables? Perhaps wanting to see where they were in 2022 versus 2024? I am not versed (yet!) in all the automation things, but could you pull those categories into a yearly attribute if you cannot do the automation? I am definitely curious about @Alex Wong and his tile but that is well beyond my capabilities or needs at this time. Just trying to think of something a bit simpler, although I try to avoid adding a lot of attributes.