Use Giving Alerts

Giving data has the potential to help you spot changes in a person's life or circumstances. Bearing that in mind, Giving Alerts are designed to let you know when something has changed in a person's giving habits, so you can take action accordingly. You might want to follow up with someone who has suddenly stopped giving, to make sure everything is okay. Or you might want to show your appreciation for someone who has given more than they usually do. Having two alerts for the same person often signals a significant life change.

There are two types of Giving Alerts. The Gratitude alert type is intended to identify when someone has given a large amount or is giving more frequently than they normally do. On the other hand, you'll get a Follow-up alert type if the person starts giving less frequently. These alerts are calculated and generated by the Giving Automation job and are highly customizable as you'll see below.

Giving Alerts for an individual can be accessed from the Person Profile page under the Contributions tab. A list of all Giving Alerts can be found by navigating to Finance > Giving Alerts. In either case, you'll be brought to a page like the one pictured below.

1. Alert Type - The alert types are color coded so you can distinguish between Gratitude (green) and Follow-up (yellow).
2. Alert Date - This is the date the alert was created. This can be useful for reporting or filtering the results.
3. Name - The person's name is displayed as a link. Clicking the link will take you to the Contributions tab of the Person Profile page for that person so you can view more information about their giving.
4. Campus - As applicable, the campus associated with the alert is displayed. You can also filter the list of alerts by campus.
5. Alert Name - You can have multiple alerts of the same type, so you'll need to know which specific alert is being viewed. This is a good reason to give your alerts descriptive names.
6. Gift Amount - The amount of the gift that triggered the alert is shown for reference as a link. Clicking the link will take you to the Transaction Detail page for the transaction, allowing you to view its details.
7. Amount +/- Median - Each person has a median giving amount, which reflects their typical gift. For the gift that triggered the alert, this column shows how much above or below the gift's amount is compared to the person's median gift amount. For instance, if a person's typical gift is $100 and an alert was triggered when they gave $200 then this column would show $100. It will also become highlighted green to draw attention to the condition that triggered the alert. You might set up a Gratitude alert for people in this scenario.
8. Days +/- Mean - Each person has a typical giving frequency. For instance, a person might have a mean average of one gift every 30 days. For the gift that triggered the alert, this column shows how many days before or after their expected gift that it was received. This tells you if the person gave sooner or later than expected. The value is highlighted yellow in this example to draw attention to the condition that triggered the alert.
9. Amount Measures - Provides the person's current median giving amount and current IQR (Interquartile Range) at the time of the gift. This lets you compare the gift that triggered the alert to the person's typical gift amount.
10. Frequency Measures - Provides the current mean frequency of giving for the person and the current standard deviation at the time of the gift.

Now that you're familiar with what Giving Alerts look like, let's see how you can set them up. The configuration for Giving Alerts can be accessed by clicking the ti ti-settings icon near the top right of the list of alerts under Finance > Giving Alerts.

Configure Giving Alerts

The Giving Alert configuration is near the bottom of the page, below the General Settings and Giving Journey settings. As you review this configuration, keep in mind that you don't want to be bugging people all the time about changes to their giving patterns. Make use of the Repeat Prevention Duration settings as described below to ensure alerts are generated at reasonable frequencies.

1. Global Repeat Prevention Duration - You don't want to be bugging people all the time about changes to their giving patterns. Setting this will prevent alerts of either type from being created within the specified number of days after an initial alert. In this example, if an alert is triggered for a person, that person won't get another alert of any type for at least 30 days.
2. Gratitude Repeat Prevention Duration - This setting controls how many days should pass after a Gratitude alert is generated for a person before another Gratitude alert is generated for the same person. A person may give more generously or more frequently, but that doesn't mean an alert should be generated every time. For instance, if a monthly giver were to give a large gift in the middle of the month, you might only want to thank them once even though they gave more frequently and more than usual.
3. Follow-up Repeat Prevention Duration - This is like the above setting but applies to Follow-up alert types. Typically, if you wanted to check in on someone who is giving less frequently, you don't need multiple different reasons to do it. In other words, you don't want to have multiple follow-up alerts in a small timeframe because you probably don't want to reach out to the person more than once in that timeframe.
4. Alerts - This is the listing of alerts that you have configured. The order of these alerts matters. Rock will evaluate a person for alerts from the top down. Once a person gets an alert they will not be evaluated for the next alert in the list unless the Continue option is enabled. You can click and drag the icon to move each alert up or down. Clicking on an alert row will open the configuration for that alert.
5. Add New Alert - New alerts can be added by clicking the icon near the bottom of the list. The configuration you'll use is described below.

Settings for Giving Alerts

Each alert has its own settings, with options that let you control exactly when the alert should occur and what actions to take when it does.

As you set up your alerts there are a few things to keep in mind. The most important part is deciding whether you're creating a Gratitude alert or a Follow-up alert. Gratitude alerts are great for recognizing when someone gives a larger gift than normal, or more frequently than usual. Follow-up alerts should be used for tracking when someone starts giving less frequently. In the next section we'll give some suggestions for how to use these settings to set up alerts of different types.

1. Name - A descriptive name will help you easily identify the alert and its purpose. This is especially helpful when you're looking at lists of alerts as shown in the sections above.
2. Person Campus - An alert will only be generated if the person's campus matches the campus selected here. This lets you have different alerts for different campuses.
3. Alert Type - As described in the sections above, alerts can be of type Gratitude or Follow-up. It's important to pick the right type for the alert you're setting up.
4. Account - You can optionally limit alerts to gifts given to a certain financial account. You also have the option of including child accounts under the selected account.
5. Continue If Matched - This setting controls whether Rock should continue evaluating a person for other alerts if they get this alert. Leaving this disabled can help ensure the person doesn't get multiple alerts for the same gift. However, depending on your setup, having multiple alerts can provide a more complete picture of how this gift compares to the person's normal giving.
6. Days to Run - You probably won't need every alert to be processed on every day of the week. For instance, you may only want to calculate alerts on Mondays or Tuesdays after all the weekend giving has been entered. Calculating alerts only one or two days out of the week also lightens the load on your system when the Giving Automation job runs.
7. Repeat Prevention Duration - This is the number of days that must pass before an individual who gets this alert can get it again. This is similar to the Repeat Prevention Duration configurations discussed in the prior section, except this applies to only this one alert.
8. Amount Sensitivity Scale - This is where you find people who gave more or less than usual. The higher the number, the further from the person's normal giving level the gift must be to trigger the alert. You could use this to trigger a Gratitude alert for people who gave more than usual. Be sure to read the on-screen details and examples to guide you in choosing a value. This setting only applies to people who have given more than five gifts in the previous 12 months.
9. Frequency Sensitivity Scale - This is like the above setting but identifies people who gave more frequently or less frequently than normal. You might use this to trigger a Follow-up alert for someone who gives regularly but seems to have stopped for some reason. This setting only applies to people who have given more than five gifts in the previous 12 months.
10. Min/Max Gift Amount - You might not want an alert created for all gifts, even if they match the alert criteria you've configured. Adding values here will limit who gets an alert based on the amount of their gift. For instance, you might skip an alert for gifts under $10. Or, you might have a separate alert for particularly large gifts.
11. Min/Max Median Gift Amount - This is similar to the above setting but looks at the person's median gift amount. This lets you trigger the alert only if the person regularly gives a certain amount. For instance, you might not want an alert to be triggered for someone who gives $1 every week and then stops.
12. Maximum Days Since Last Gift - This setting gives you another way to control who gets alerts based on the frequency of giving. You could use this to set up a Gratitude alert for someone who has given twice in the past week.
13. Person Data View - Data Views are a powerful and flexible way to identify the exact population of people for whom you want to create alerts. For instance, you might only want alerts for people with a certain connection status.
14. Launch Workflow of Type - A workflow is a great way to take action on an alert. With the power and flexibility of workflows, you can do just about anything. Keep in mind that the person the alert is about (i.e., the financial transaction's 'authorized' person) is set as the workflow initiator.
15. Connection Type - Especially for Follow-up alerts, you might want to create a connection request for the person. Selecting a Connection Type will provide a second field where you can specify the Opportunity that the connection request should be added to. The person receiving the alert will be set as the requester.
16. Send Donor Communication From Template - You can choose to automatically send a communication to the person receiving the alert using the selected template. If you're creating a new alert you might want to wait before using this feature, to ensure the alert is getting generated for the population you intend to target.
17. Send Account Participant Communication From Template - If you have an Account filter set up (see #4 above) you can use this field to send a communication to anyone who is listed as an Account Participant within the Account's configuration, with the Purpose Key ofGiving Alerts.
18. Send Bus Event - This setting only applies if you have a Message Bus set up. If you do, and if this is enabled, the alert will trigger an event to be sent.
19. Alert Summary Notification Group - Members of the selected group will receive an email notifying them that a giving alert has been created for the person. By default, the email only provides the person's name and a link to the alert. The system communication used for this is Financial Transaction Alert Summary.

Giving Alert Examples

Now that you're familiar with the different options you have for Giving Alerts, below are some ways that you might implement them. Keep in mind these are only suggestions based on some common use cases.

• Late Gift Alert
  • Alert Type is Follow-up
  • Positive number in the Frequency Sensitivity Scale
• Early Gift Alert
  • Alert Type is Gratitude
  • Negative number in the Frequency Sensitivity Scale
• Larger Gift Than Usual
  • Alert Type is Gratitude
  • Positive number in the Amount Sensitivity Scale
• A Single Large Gift
  • Alert Type is Gratitude
  • Frequency Sensitivity Scale and Amount Sensitivity Scale are blank
  • Minimum Gift Amount has a high value
• Large Gift for People Who Don't Normally Give That Amount
  • Alert Type is Gratitude
  • Frequency Sensitivity Scale and Amount Sensitivity Scale are blank
  • Minimum Gift Amount has a high value
  • Maximum Median Gift Amount has a value lower than the Minimum Gift Amount (first-time giver would be $0.00)