Giving Societies and Recognition
A Giving Society is a named recognition program that acknowledges donors who have given above a defined threshold — either within a particular year or cumulatively over their lifetime. Each society is a single entity with its own minimum giving threshold (Base Value). A contact’s membership is tracked through a Contact Giving Society record.
Examples: “Founder’s Circle”, “Legacy Society”, “1848 Society”.
Configuring Giving Societies
Giving Societies are configured in Master Data under Fundraising / Recognition → Giving Societies.
Giving Society Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Display name of the society (e.g., “Legacy Society”) |
| Description | Explanatory text about the program |
| Base Value | Minimum current-year giving required to qualify for this society (leave blank for societies that require manual award only, such as planned giving societies) |
| Sort Order | Controls display order when multiple societies are listed |
| Account | The DonorPoint account this society belongs to |
| Archived | Hides the society from active use without deleting it |
Tracking Contact Membership
A Contact Giving Society record connects a contact to a specific giving society. These records are managed from:
- A contact’s Recognition tab on the contact edit page
- A user account’s Recognition tab on the user account edit page
- The standalone list: Transactions → Recognition in the sidebar
Contact Giving Society Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact | The contact being recognized |
| Society | The Giving Society the contact qualifies for |
| Recognition Type | Categorizes the recognition (e.g., Annual, Lifetime, Planned Gift) |
| Year | The giving year this recognition applies to (not used for lifetime records) |
| Lifetime | If checked, this is a permanent recognition not tied to a specific year |
| Qualifying Amount | The giving total that qualified the contact for this recognition |
| Recognized On | Date the recognition was formally awarded |
| Notes | Free-text notes about this recognition record |
Lifetime vs. Annual Recognition
- Annual recognition: set a Year (e.g., 2025) and leave Lifetime unchecked. The recognition applies to that campaign year only.
- Lifetime recognition: check Lifetime. The Year field does not apply. Use this for cumulative giving milestones that are permanent once earned.
Creating a Recognition Record
- Open a contact record and go to the Recognition tab, then click Create, or
- Navigate to Transactions → Recognition in the sidebar and click Create.
Select the contact, choose the society, and set either a year (for annual recognition) or check Lifetime. Add a qualifying amount and recognition date as appropriate.
Giving Society Qualification View
The Society Qualifiers view (accessible once added to the sidebar) automatically identifies contacts who have reached the minimum giving threshold for a society in the current campaign year but have not yet been awarded that recognition. The view uses the contact’s current-year giving total — including Soft Credits flagged as Recognized — to determine qualification.
Each row shows the contact, their year-to-date giving total, and the highest society they qualify for. You can award recognition to individual contacts using the Award button per row, or award all qualifying contacts at once with Award All.
Only societies with a Base Value defined are considered for automatic qualification. Societies without a base value (such as planned giving societies) must be awarded manually.
Current-Year Giving Total and Next Society Delta
On the Recognition tab of a contact record, two calculated fields provide at-a-glance recognition intelligence:
- Current Year Giving Total — the sum of the contact’s own active donation transactions for the current campaign year, plus any soft credits where the Recognized flag is set to true.
- Next Society Delta — the additional amount the contact needs to give to reach the next higher giving society by base value. Null if the contact already qualifies for the highest society or no higher society exists.
These fields are read-only and recalculated by the database on each load.
Giving Society Distribution Lists
Giving Society Contact Lists are a type of distribution list that generates an email list from existing recognition records. Use them to send targeted communications to members of a specific society for a given year or lifetime recognition.
Configure the list with:
- Society — restrict to one giving society (optional; leave blank to include all societies)
- Recognition Year — restrict to a specific year (leave blank to use the current campaign year)
- Lifetime — filter to lifetime-only, annual-only, or all recognitions
- Recognition Type — filter to a specific recognition type (optional)
Reporting
Contact Giving Society records are available in the standard reporting system. Useful applications:
- Generating a list of all contacts in a particular society for a given year
- Identifying lifetime members for stewardship purposes
- Comparing current recognition against giving history to find contacts who qualify for a higher society
Use Building Reports to build recognition reports filtered by society, year, lifetime status, or recognition type.