How Do I Import Data Into RaiseDonors?

This article will explain what kind of data data can be imported into RaiseDonors and the manner in which that data can be imported.

How do I import data into RaiseDonors?

First, let's discuss how data can be imported into RaiseDonors.

1. The first option is to leverage RaiseDonors' API and import any data object into RaiseDonors. This is the most flexible choice, but also requires you have a web developer who is comfortable making API calls (technology agnostic) to push data into RaiseDonors. Our API supports Adding, Editing, and Retrieving information.

2. The second option is to hire our team to provide professional services where we facilitate the process of importing the data into RaiseDonors for you. If you're interested in this service, just drop us a note and we can talk through your needs, the process, expectations, costs, and timelines.
As a point of clarity, if you leverage our professional services, you will be responsible for populating our standardized import templates with the data you want imported into RaiseDonors.

What types of data can I import into RaiseDonors?

Below you will find information about the different types of data that can be loaded into RaiseDonors. You can use this information in conjunction with the API documentation -- or -- you can use this information to download the import templates needed to proceed with professional services.

• Donors
• Recurring Schedules in RaiseDonors
• Helpful Pointers
• Professional Services
• Passive Approach
• Manual Approach
• Funds

Importing Donors into RaiseDonors

When you first login to RaiseDonors, there is no donor or transaction data in your account.

Many organizations proceed without importing donor data into RaiseDonors. This is often because they have a CRM integration enabled -- which means that all the data from RaiseDonors will be pushed into their CRM (master database). This treats RaiseDonors as a "segment" of donors, which continues to grow as fundraising efforts continue.

Other organizations prefer to import all donors into the system before starting any fundraising efforts.  This is particularly useful for providing donors with access to their donor portal -- where they can manage recurring giving schedules and view their giving history.

Here are fields for importing donors:

Required fields

• First Name (string, 75 character max)
• Last Name (string, 75 character max)
• Email Address (string, 150 character max)
• Billing Address (string, 255 character max)
• Billing City (string, 255 character max)
• Billing State (Full Text) (string, 255 character max)
• Billing Postal (string, 15 character max)
• Billing Country (ISO3 or ISO2) (string, 150 character max)

Optional fields

• Organization Name (Business) (string, 100 character max)
• Phone Number (string, 50 character max)
• Shipping Address (string, 255 character max)
• Shipping City (string, 255 character max)
• Shipping State (Full Text) (string, 255 character max)
• Shipping Postal (string, 15 character max)
• Shipping Country (ISO3 or ISO2) (string, 150 character max)
• Newsletter Opt In - Has this donor opted in to your email appeals? (boolean)
• CRM Key - A key to your system (ie: CRM) (string, 100 character max)

What about donor accounts and passwords?

Country values must match this standardized list.
State values must match this standardized list.
Canadian State values must match this standardized list.

Importing recurring schedules into RaiseDonors

RaiseDonors never stores sensitive credit card information. All of the schedules and sensitive information is stored inside the gateway system and outside of RaiseDonors.
The true "schedule" lives at the gateway, which is responsible for charging the payment method on file on the proper day of the month. RaiseDonors has a "schedule object", but this is just a placeholder to contain information about the schedule at the gateway.

For sake of simplicity of definitions, when we refer to the "schedule" we are referring to the schedule at the gateway. When we refer to the "schedule object" we are referring to the schedule placeholder in RaiseDonors.

You have a choice to passively import recurring schedules or manually import recurring schedules.  In both cases, schedules already exist in the gateway (created outside of RaiseDonors) and they need to be imported into RaiseDonors.

 

Passive approach

You can use the built-in features of RaiseDonors to consume the recurring schedules from the gateway over the course of a month, as the schedules are charged at your gateway.

Pros	Cons
Don't have to spend time and money to import schedules into RaiseDonors via API or professional services	It takes up to 1 month to complete (needs to cycle through each day of the month)
Minimal business rules	Donors won't be able to see their recurring schedule in the donor portal until the passive approach has completed
Entirely automated	Less attributions for each schedule: When a schedule created outside of RaiseDonors is imported, it will be tied to a specific "Page" in RaiseDonors named "import-donors". The schedule and subsequent donations will inherit all of the attributions configured in the Page "import-donors". This includes motivation code, source code, etc. The schedule will be attributed to one specific Fund. There is no ability to split the schedule across multiple Funds. There are very few customizations.

 

Getting started with the Passive Approach

To continue with the passive approach, within your RaiseDonors account go to:

Account Settings -> Payment Provider -> Recurring Donations.

There you can modify how RaiseDonors imports recurring donations from the gateway.

 

Step 1: Enable Recurring Payments

The first thing you'll see is an option to enable "Recurring donations". This option is available to simply enable/disable the ability for your donation pages to accept recurring donations.

Now that you have recurring donations enabled, you will be able to provide the option to your donors to make their donations recurring.

So when Jane Doe gives a $50 monthly gift, RaiseDonors will create a new "schedule" at the gateway and create a "schedule object" placeholder to reference it in the future.

 

Step 2: Enable "Import scheduled recurring donations"

The next option on the screen is to "Import scheduled recurring donations". By enabling this feature, you are telling RaiseDonors to continue to import all the future transactions that occur from the recurring schedules created via RaiseDonors.

So when Jane Doe creates a monthly gift of $50 to occur on the 15th of every month, her first donation will occur today and that recurring schedule will be created at the gateway.  Next month on the 15th, the gateway will charge another $50.  By enabling "Import scheduled recurring donations" -- RaiseDonors is giving a "job" to your gateway to come back and tell RaiseDonors what happened (approved/declined).

When this occurs, the donation will be imported into RaiseDonors (to send email acknowledgements, update giving history, integrate with your CRM, etc).

 

Step 3: Enable "Import pre-existing recurring donations"

Once you enable the import of scheduled recurring donations, you will now have the option to also “Import pre-existing recurring donations”.

If you have used this gateway outside of RaiseDonors, it is quite likely there are already pre-existing recurring schedules that were created outside of RaiseDonors and currently running.

Enabling this feature will not only import the donation when the schedule occurs, but it will also create the schedule object inside the RaiseDonors system — allowing the donor and admin to manage the schedule through the RaiseDonors interface.

When enabling this feature, you will also need to designate "Which Fund should the donations from pre-existing recurring donations be assigned to."

The reason for this is:

1. RaiseDonors will not know how to attribute this donation -- as none of this attribution data is passed through from the gateway.

2. Every donation in RaiseDonors is required to be assigned to a Fund -- so assigning a fund is essential for the integration to succeed.

Once these settings are in place - then recurring donations can be imported and the schedules can be "auto" created for you throughout the month.
You can read more in depth information about how to configure recurring payments here.

 

Getting started with the Manual Approach

If you require more customization when importing your recurring donors, then the manual approach will be your best bet. With the manual approach you are able to account for specific Fund designations, multiple Fund designations for a single donation, and attribution codes (motivation, source, segment, etc).

There are two ways to proceed with the manual approach: 

1. We're here to help!  You can enlist RaiseDonors via a professional services agreement to aid you in this process.

2. If you have a developer or web team, you can import the data using the RaiseDonors API.

If you proceed with the manual approach, there is a critical piece to understand in regards to timing. If all of your recurring schedules hit on the 15th of the month, it's important that the schedules are loaded into your gateway before the 15th, the file is created and provided to RaiseDonors before the 15th, and RaiseDonors has time to import the schedules before the 15th. Put another way, if you have a recurring schedule hitting every day of the month, you'll find that schedules are passively imported into RaiseDonors because the charge took place in the gateway before the schedule was created in RaiseDonors.

 

Getting started with professional services

Please email us at help@raisedonors.com and provide the following information.

• Context for why you are needing to import recurring schedule objects into RaiseDonors.
• Timeline for imports to be completed (at least 2 weeks notice).
• Preferred date and time to schedule a kick-off call for this project.
• The gateway where schedules currently exist. (**)
• The CSV file will contain information we need to import and create the schedule objects in RaiseDonors.

Tips for populating recurring schedule import file

The following information provides context for the fields of information needed in the attached XLS. Note, the xls file has two tabs. The first tab is specific to schedules having 1 fund allocation. The second tab shows an example for supporting up to 3 fund allocations per schedule. 
The items indicated with * are required fields. Please ensure any data provided is appropriately parsed for commas and apostrophe's to be compatible for CSV's.
If the gateway being used is Authorize.net - RaiseDonors can communicate directly with Authorize.net to download all schedules and build this CSV for you automatically. This is helpful when timing is critical and you are unable to export ARB's from Authorize.net. Once the CSV is supplied, you can then fill in the missing information (pageName, Motivation, etc).

RaiseDonors.Donor.Id	If pre-existing, the RaiseDonors.Donor.Id of the donor. If this field is included, other related Donor information can be omitted.
Donor.FirstName*	First Name of Donor
Donor.LastName*	Last Name of Donor
Donor.EmailAddress*	Email Address of Donor. Please note the requirements that email address is a required field and must be unique per donor.
Donor.Phone	Phone number for Donor
Donor.BillingAddress*	Billing Address of Donor for payment method
Donor.BillingCity*	Billing City of Donor
Donor.BillingState*	Billing State of Donor (ISO2, ex: TX)
Donor.BillingPostal*	Billing Postal/Zip of Donor
Donor.BillingCountry*	Billing Country of Donor (ISO3, ex: USA)
Donor.CRM	For reporting purposes, you can include the CRM ID from your system.
Gateway.Schedule.Number*	The ID/Number/Code that references the schedule. If you have not moved your recurring schedule into the new gateway, you can leave this field empty.
Gateway.Schedule.CustomerKey	For stripe, associated customer Id/Key
Donation.FundCode*	RaiseDonors Fund "code" to associate with donation (you can locate this on the 'Funds' page in RaiseDonors.) ** Special considerations for multiple fund designations are needed ** Please look at the XLS's second tab for examples supporting multiple fund allocations.
Donation.MotivationCode	Motivation code to associate with donations
Donation.SourceCode	Source code to associate with donations
Donation.PageName*	Page to associate with schedule and donation. Name must match exactly to page name in RaiseDonors. If your account has multiple gateways enabled, the gateway selected in this page is the gateway this schedule will be attached with.

 

Helpful Pointers for importing Recurring Schedules via API

You'll find the following API endpoints helpful when creating schedule objects inside RaiseDonors.

• Empty Schedule Object Schema
• Empty Donation Schema
• Add Donor
• Add Donation
• Add Schedule Object

Advice for importing

You'll also find the following information helpful when creating the schedule objects in RaiseDonors:

1. You'll need to first create the donor and address - or locate the existing donor and save the Donor.ID.

2. Then you'll need to create the schedule object and assign it to this new donor.

a. The schedule object contains a property for "metaConfigurationObject". This property is critically important as it contains all attributes to ensure the schedule is captured properly. Such as motivation code, source code, page, media outlet, premium code, and fund allocations.

With all of those business constraints in place - you are ready to import your recurring schedule objects into RaiseDonors!

 

Importing Funds into RaiseDonors

Some integrations facilitate the auto population of Funds into RaiseDonors. If your organization is leveraging a CRM integration, you may not need to worry about creating or importing Funds into RaiseDonors.

 

Manual

• Virtuous - RaiseDonors does not currently import Funds from nor are Funds pushed to Virtuous from RaiseDonors.
• SalesForce - RaiseDonors does not currently import Funds from nor are Funds pushed to Virtuous from RaiseDonors.
• MPX - RaiseDonors does not currently import Funds from nor are Funds pushed to Virtuous from RaiseDonors.

When creating funds manually in RaiseDonors, you are welcome to use the API, the administrative interface, or professional services. Below is a summary of the required fields when creating funds in RaiseDonors.

Required fields

• Name (string, 150 character max)
• Active (boolean)
• SortOrder (integer)
• Code (string, 100 character max. Required to be a unique value for each fund)

Optional fields

• Description (string, no max)
• Image (string, no max. Should be https:// url)
• Email Address (string, no max. multiple email addresses separated by comma)

You are welcome to use this template to aid RaiseDonor's professional services in importing your fund data.