Skip to main content

Track Engagement and Capacity

Goal: Use Ayuna's engagement signals — capacity rating, giving level, recency, and crossover with volunteering — to build prospect lists worth working from.

What "engagement" means in Ayuna​

Engagement is the combination of:

  • What they've given — lifetime giving, recency of last gift, average gift size
  • What they could give — capacity rating
  • How else they're involved — volunteer hours, event attendance, pledges, sponsorships
  • How recently you've connected — last communication, last gift, last touch

The donor list at /donors filters and sorts on most of these dimensions. The donor profile aggregates them visually.

Building a prospect list​

The most useful prospect list for major-gift work:

  • Capacity Rating = High or Major
  • Last donation within the last 24 months (or never for new prospects)
  • Excluded — Do Not Solicit donors

Sort by recency of most recent communication so you call the dormant ones first.

For mid-level annual donors:

  • Lifetime giving between $1,000 and $9,999
  • Last donation more than 18 months ago
  • Capacity Rating Medium or higher

Crossover donors are gold​

A "crossover" is someone who both donates and volunteers. Their profile carries a Crossover badge, and the donor list has a filter for them.

Crossovers tend to:

  • Give more per year than donor-only constituents
  • Stay engaged longer
  • Bring others into the fold

Treat them as a distinct segment in your annual appeals — a "thank you for the hours and the gifts both" message lands differently than a generic appeal.

Updating capacity ratings​

Set capacity during cultivation conversations, then update when something changes:

  • A donor mentions a liquidity event (sale of business, inheritance) → bump up
  • A donor signals constraints (medical bills, retirement) → bump down
  • A two-year stretch of declining gifts → consider whether the rating still fits

Edit Capacity Rating from the donor's profile via the Edit Person dialog.

Engagement decay​

Ayuna doesn't automatically downgrade engagement when someone goes quiet. That's intentional — silence isn't always disengagement. But you should manually review:

  • Quarterly: which High/Major capacity donors haven't been touched in 6+ months
  • Annually: which past donors haven't given in 36 months (these are "lapsed")

Both reviews surface from the donor list and the donor relations dashboard.

What good looks like​

A development team that uses these signals well:

  • Knows who their top 50 prospects are at any moment
  • Knows the next move on each (visit / call / event invite / proposal)
  • Updates capacity ratings every time they have a meaningful conversation
  • Trusts the data enough to plan the year's appeals from it