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Maintain Donor Profiles

Goal: Keep the records that drive every gift, receipt, and stewardship touch — donor identity, contact, giving history, and admin attributes — accurate and up to date.

The donor record​

A donor in Ayuna is a Person (or Organization) with a donor role attached. The donor role carries the structured attributes that drive fundraising behavior:

  • Donor Type — Individual / Corporate / Foundation / Government
  • Giving Level — auto-calculated from lifetime giving (override manually if needed)
  • Capacity Rating — internal assessment for major-gift cultivation
  • Preferred Acknowledgment — Public / Private / Anonymous
  • Do Not Solicit — exclusion flag for fundraising appeals
  • Lifetime Giving / Donation Count / Largest Gift — derived from recorded donations

These all live on the donor's profile (/people/:personId) under the "Donor Settings" section of the header card. Edit them from the Edit Person dialog when the donor has admin permission.

Adding a donor​

Donors usually appear in Ayuna one of three ways:

  • A new gift comes in through a public donate page or embedded form, and Ayuna creates the donor record automatically
  • A staff member records a donation manually for someone not yet in the system, prompting profile creation
  • A development officer adds a prospect proactively before any gift, so they can be tracked through cultivation

For the third case, create the person record from /donors or /people and assign them the donor role even before their first gift.

Avoiding duplicates​

Before creating, search by name and email. Duplicates fragment giving history, capacity ratings, and communication. When you find one, merge — Ayuna consolidates donations, recurring schedules, pledges, sponsorships, and notes onto the surviving record.

Organizations and contacts​

For corporate, foundation, and government donors, capture both:

  • The organization record (name, EIN, type, primary contact)
  • The person who's the contact (their own profile, with the link back to the org)

Gifts are recorded against the organization. Stewardship touches are recorded against the contact. Both surfaces show the relationship.

Notes that matter​

Profile notes are visible to staff with donor-management access. Use them for:

  • Cultivation context — the conversation that led to a gift, names of family members who came up, interests beyond Habitat
  • Stewardship preferences — "Always include a hand-written note from the executive director"
  • Sensitive context — health issues, family transitions, recent losses (so other staff don't say something inappropriate)

Notes become permanent record. Write professionally — assume they'll be read by the donor someday, even if that's unlikely in practice.

Handling sensitive transitions​

When a donor passes away:

  • Mark the record so it's clear in any list
  • Apply Do Not Solicit unless the family has signaled otherwise
  • Capture the spouse / executor as the new primary contact if continuing the relationship makes sense

When a donor explicitly asks to stop being contacted, apply Do Not Solicit immediately. The flag is honored by every appeal and campaign in Ayuna automatically.

Privacy and access​

Donor records contain sensitive financial and personal data. Access is gated by permission. Limit donor-edit access to the development team and senior leadership. Audit logs record who viewed and changed what.