Import new gifts with new constituents

Robert Rund · July 2021

I get a number of new gifts entered from another system we use weekly and I need to import them into RE. I can set up a gift import easily enough but if some of these gifts are attached to new constituents, it seems like I can't add a new constituent and add a new gift all in one import. Is the best solution to do two imports and import all of the new constituents and then pull my list of constituents to add the constituentID into the gift import to add the new gifts? This seems like quite a process and before I spend too much time putting this together, I wanted to see if I'm missing something and if there is an easier way to go about this.

Thanks.

Heather MacKenzie · July 2021

You got it - import the new constituents first, then import all the gifts.

Heather MacKenzie · July 2021

Also, look into Importacular and/or Import O Matic - Many people are huge fans of both of them for regularly recurring imports.

JoAnn Strommen · July 2021

Which comes first the gift or the constituent? Yes, ideally they could come at the same time but RE needs that constituent record to be sure the gift lands in the correct place. As @Heather MacKenzie said, import constituents, then gifts.

One short cut would be, if you can keep records in the same file when you create constituent IDs. Copy those IDs to the gift records before splitting your files. You should be able to use those constituent IDs for the gift import without having to pull records back out.

Dan Snyder · July 2021

We use Importacular for this exact situation. We have a program where we are largely getting new donors who are making gifts and Importacular allows us to add the constituent and put the gifts in batch all in one import.

Donald Schumacher · July 2021

I'm having problems finding a way to import new gifts into a batch natively in RE. Is that correct? Do I need to recommend a 3rd party import tool to do this? I found that I can update gifts in a batch, but do not see a path to create new gifts and assign to a batch.

Warren Sherliker · July 2021

If you have renxt you can import gifts into the renxt gift batch system via the Blackbaud APIs or import tools such as the ones we provide. Message me if interested.

Do note, via apis, this can be from an Excel file, CSV, or even direct and automated from the source app like Stripe, PayPal etc…

Karen Diener · July 2021

Definitely check out Importacular. There is a free version which may allow this. I don't know specific nuances of it but I'm sure they would be happy to get you up to speed. The beauty of it is that you set up a “profile” which can be used repeatedly for the same import file. Since you do this regularly, it is definitely worth investigating.

David Zeidman · July 2021

Thanks Karen, Dan and Heather for the Importacular shoutout.

What you are describing can be done in one pass in Importacular and for the data that you want to bring in, it can be done for free.

I am not allowed to tell you where you may find Importacular but if you use one of the larger search engines then I am sure you will find it! If anybody has any specific questions then please do get in touch.

Thanks

Christine Robertson · August 2021

Hi Donald - you may already have the answer for this since your post is from a few weeks ago, but you can't import to Batch with RE Import. That can be done with a 3rd party tool such as Importacular or Importomatic.

Import new gifts with new constituents

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