An introduction to Donor Journeys

What Are Donor Journeys?

Donor Journeys are structured, automated pathways that help you manage relationships and guide supporters through stages of engagement — from first-time donors to loyal advocates.
A journey represents a pipeline process made up of multiple stages. Each stage reflects a specific point in a donor’s lifecycle with your organization, such as:

New Donor Welcome
Major Donor Cultivation
Lapsed Donor Recovery
Event Sponsor Conversion

Every nonprofit defines its own journeys based on its engagement goals and stewardship processes

Creating a Donor Journey

To create a new journey:

Navigate to Automations → Donor Journeys.
Click New Journey.
Choose a template (e.g., Major Donor Pipeline, Lapsed Donor Recovery) or start from scratch.
Add stages to represent milestones or engagement levels (e.g., Prospect → Engaged → Committed).
Optionally, add a description for each stage to clarify its purpose.
Save and activate your journey once setup is complete

You can also reorder, clone, archive, export, or import journeys as needed. This flexibility allows you to replicate best-practice pipelines or adapt them for specific programs.

Automating Each Stage

Each journey stage can include a mini workflow that triggers automatically when a contact enters that stage.
These automations might include:

Sending an internal notification to a team member
Assigning a follow-up task
Sending a thank-you or welcome email
Updating tags or lists

To set this up:

In your journey editor, select a stage.
Click Create Workflow under “Upon Journey Stage Entry.”
Configure and publish the workflow.
When a contact moves into that stage, the workflow runs automatically

Exit Criteria and Re-entry

You can define exit criteria to move contacts automatically between stages.
For example:

“If the donor’s number of donations is greater than one, move to the next stage.”

Contacts meeting these criteria are automatically advanced without manual updates

You can also specify whether contacts are allowed to re-enter a journey after completion — useful for recurring campaigns or cyclical donor experiences.

Managing Journeys and Contacts

Once a journey is active, you can:

Enroll contacts manually from their record.
Track progress across stages.
View conversion rates, drop-off rates, and time spent in each stage.
Drag-and-drop contacts between stages as needed.

The journey dashboard displays:

Active participants and their current stage
Historical data (who has completed or dropped off)
Conversion metrics
Average duration per stage

You can click any contact’s name to go directly to their record

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Reporting and Analytics

Use the built-in Journey Report to analyze performance.
Reports include:

Each contact’s current stage
Entry and last activity dates
Assigned owner and next activity
Conversion rates and time in stage
Export to Excel for deeper analysis

You can also filter journeys by owner to view progress by team member or portfolio segment

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When to Use Donor Journeys

Use donor journeys to systematize relationship-building processes such as:

Cultivating major gifts
Automating Gift-ask pipeline processes
Re-engaging lapsed donors
Welcoming new supporters
Managing recurring or event donors

Donor journeys help your team focus on meaningful engagement while automating repetitive steps — leading to more consistent stewardship and stronger donor retention.

Testing (Pre-Launch)

Draft Mode: Run test cohort (internal seed emails).
Simulate timeline: Validate waits, decisions, branching metrics.
Data Edge Cases: Missing email, bounced addresses, high-value donors.

Activate

Set Launch Date/Time
Confirm version freeze
Enable monitoring alerts

Summary

Setting up a donor journey involves precise audience targeting, structured sequencing, responsive branching, and continuous data-informed refinement. Treat the initial launch as Version 1; monitor, iterate, and maintain governance rigor to maximize donor lifetime value and stewardship quality.