Gifts from the donation page, a crowdfunding page, bank standing orders and office-entered cash or checks are matched to one donor by email, phone and ID number. Near matches go to a review queue, and finance gets a daily reconciliation against the CRM.
Typical results
Daily
Each channel's total reconciled against the CRM
≈20 hrs/mo
Saved on gift entry, cleanup and reconciliation
4
Gift channels feeding one giving history per donor
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Four channels bring in about 1,200 gifts a month, and each keeps its own donor list. The office imports them into the CRM by hand, and the same person often ends up as three records with different emails or spellings. Giving histories split, thank-you letters go out twice, and month-end totals never quite match the bank.
Before and after
New duplicate donor records per month
−90%Hours to reconcile gifts at month end
−88%Gifts keyed in by hand each month
−80%The automation
Every gift from the donation page, the crowdfunding page, bank standing orders and the office's cash and check form is matched to an existing donor by email, phone and ID number and added to that donor's giving history in the CRM. Near matches, such as a new email with a known phone number, go to a review queue instead of creating a duplicate. Finance receives a daily reconciliation sheet comparing each channel's total with the CRM.
How it works
- 01
Gifts from four channels
Gifts arrive from the donation page, the crowdfunding page, monthly bank standing orders and cash or checks the office enters in a short form.
- 02
Matched to a known donor
Each gift is matched to an existing donor by email, phone and ID number, then added to that donor's giving history in the CRM.
- 03
Near matches go to review
A near match, such as a new email with a known phone number, goes to a review queue to merge or create with one click instead of becoming a duplicate.
- 04
New donors created cleanly
Gifts with no match create a new donor record with the channel, campaign and consent flags filled in.
- 05
Daily reconciliation sheet
Finance gets a daily sheet with each channel's total next to the CRM total, with any gap listed gift by gift.
Starts from
- Donation and crowdfunding
- Bank standing orders
- Cash and check entries
Delivers
- One CRM record per donor
- Near-match review queue
- Daily reconciliation sheet
The impact
Each donor has one giving history across every channel, and new duplicate records fall from about 60 a month to 6. Month-end reconciliation shrinks from two days to about two hours, the office saves around 20 hours a month, and the donor list and the books agree.
Questions about this automation
How does it decide two records are the same donor?
An exact match on ID number, or on email plus name, links the gift to the existing donor automatically. Partial matches, like the same phone with a different email or a slightly different spelling, are scored and sent to the review queue, where staff merge them or keep them separate with one click. Nothing is merged on a guess.
Which donation and banking systems can it connect to?
It works with donation pages and crowdfunding platforms that send a webhook or offer an export, bank statements as a CSV or bank feed for standing orders, and a simple form for cash and checks. Gifts land in the CRM the charity already uses, such as HubSpot, Salesforce or a dedicated donor database.
Can it clean up the duplicates we already have?
Yes. Before the live sync starts, the existing donor list is run through the same matching rules, and suspected duplicates are grouped for staff to review and merge, keeping the full giving history of each. Cleanup and the ongoing sync form a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages.