Migrating Gift History: Preserving Your Donation Data Integrity

Ohana Focus Team
Jan 22
6 min read

By Ohana Focus | January 5, 2025 | 16 min read

Gift history is the crown jewel of your nonprofit's data—the comprehensive record of donor generosity that tells the story of every contribution, every pledge and every recurring donation that fuels your mission. When migrating from Raiser's Edge to Salesforce, preserving the complete accuracy and integrity of this donation data isn't just important—it's mission-critical.

A single error in gift migration can have cascading consequences. Inaccurate lifetime giving totals undermine major gift conversations. Misattributed donations damage donor relationships. Lost pledge information disrupts cash flow projections. Corrupted recurring gift schedules lead to processing errors and donor confusion.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through every aspect of successfully migrating your gift history from Raiser's Edge to Salesforce. You'll learn how to prepare your donation data, map complex gift types, handle special scenarios, validate migration accuracy, and ensure your fundraising team has complete confidence in their new system from day one.

Why Donation Data Integrity Matters

Before diving into the technical details, let's understand what's at stake when migrating donation data.

Fundraising Operations Depend on Accurate Data

Your development team makes critical decisions based on gift history. Major gift officers determine solicitation amounts by reviewing lifetime giving patterns. The annual fund managers segment appeals by giving history and recency. Planned giving officers identify prospects through consistent multi-year support. Corporate relations staff track matching gift participation.

If gift data is incomplete or inaccurate after migration, these decisions become unreliable. Worse, your team loses confidence in the CRM, leading to decreased adoption and workarounds that further degrade data quality.

Donor Relationships Require Accurate Recognition

Donors expect accurate acknowledgment of their giving history. Imagine a longtime supporter receiving recognition for their 'first gift' when they've given for 20 years. Or a major donor is thanked for their '$500 contribution' when they actually gave $5,000. These aren't hypothetical scenarios—they happen when gift history migration goes wrong.

Financial Reporting Depends on Complete Records

Your finance team relies on the CRM for revenue reporting, audit trails, and financial reconciliation. Incomplete gift migration creates discrepancies between your CRM and accounting systems.

Understanding Gift Structures

The first step in successful gift migration is understanding how each system structures donation data.

In Raiser's Edge, gifts are relatively straightforward records attached to constituent records. Each gift contains:

• Date, amount, and type

• Payment method

• Campaign/fund/appeal attribution

• Acknowledgment information

Salesforce NPC takes a more structured approach using Opportunities (the pledge or donation commitment) and Payments (the actual financial transactions).

Aspect	Raiser's Edge	Salesforce NPC
Single Gift	One gift record	One Opportunity + one Payment
Pledge	Pledge + payment records	One Opportunity + multiple Payments
Recurring Gift	Schedule + gift records	Recurring Donation + Opportunities

Gift Types and Migration Strategies

Let's examine each major gift type and how to migrate it successfully.

1. Completed Single Gifts

Single completed gifts are the most straightforward to migrate. Each Raiser's Edge gift becomes a Salesforce Opportunity with:

• Stage 'Closed Won'

• Close Date matching the gift date

• A Payment record automatically created

2. Pledges and Multi-Payment Commitments

Pledge migration requires special handling to preserve both the commitment and individual payment records.

Each Raiser's Edge pledge becomes a Salesforce Opportunity with:

• Total pledge amount

• Pledge date as Close Date

• Stage based on pledge status

• Expected completion date

Each pledge payment becomes a Payment record linked to the Opportunity with the actual payment date, amount, and payment method.

3. Recurring Gifts and Sustainer Programs

Recurring gift migration is one of the most complex scenarios. Your migration approach depends on whether recurring gifts are still active.

For Active Recurring Gifts:

• Create a Recurring Donation record with schedule details

• Migrate historical gifts as Opportunities

• Let NPC generate future Opportunities

• Verify the next expected gift date is correct

For Inactive Recurring Gifts:

• Migrate only historical gifts as regular Opportunities

• Do not create Recurring Donation records

• Preserve the fact that gifts were part of a recurring program

4. In-Kind Donations

In-kind donations require special field mapping to preserve details about donated goods or services:

• Record Type: 'In-Kind Gift'

• Fair Market Value in the Amount field

• Description of donated items/services

5. Soft Credits and Secondary Attribution

Soft credits recognize individuals who influenced a gift without being the legal donor. Salesforce NPC offers two primary methods:

• Partial Soft Credits with specific dollar amounts

• Opportunity Contact Roles for tracking involvement without monetary allocation

Pre-Migration Data Preparation

Success in gift migration starts long before the actual data transfer. Thorough preparation is essential.

Step 1: Comprehensive Gift Data Audit

Begin with a complete audit of your gift data. Generate reports showing:

• Total gift count by type

• Date range of gift history

• Total dollar amounts by year

• Gifts with missing key information

• Any anomalies (negative amounts, future dates)

Step 2: Clean and Validate Gift Records

Address data quality issues before migration with these priorities:

Critical Issues (Must Fix):

• Gifts without dates

• Gifts without donor attribution

• Zero or negative amounts

• Invalid payment methods

• Orphaned pledge payments

Step 3: Define Historical Data Scope

Decide how much gift history to migrate. Most organizations migrate 7-10 years of complete history to support accurate lifetime giving calculations and trend analysis.

Step 4: Map Campaign/Fund Structure

Your campaign and fund structure in Raiser's Edge may not directly translate to Salesforce. Decide how to handle multiple attribution levels:

• Determine which field becomes the primary Campaign

• Create custom fields for additional attribution

• Consider consolidating or simplifying the structure

Testing and Validation Strategy

Gift migration requires extensive testing to verify accuracy. Plan for at least three test migration cycles.

Critical Validation Checks:

Quantitative Validation:

• Gift Count: total Opportunities should match total gifts

• Dollar Totals: total giving by year should match exactly

• Donor Giving Totals: sample individual lifetime giving

• Pledge Balances: outstanding amounts should reconcile

• Payment Count: should match expected count

Qualitative Validation:

• Review sample donor records

• Check campaign rollups

• Verify soft credits appear correctly

• Test recurring gift schedules

• Review pledge payment schedules

Common Migration Mistakes

Inadequate Testing

Problem: Organizations rush through testing, conducting only one test migration before going live.

Solution: Plan for multiple test cycles with progressively larger datasets.

Ignoring Data Quality

Problem: Attempting to migrate dirty data 'as is' with plans to clean it later.

Solution: Clean critical data issues before migration.

Overlooking Soft Credits

Problem: Soft credit mapping is neglected, causing influential supporters to lose credit.

Solution: Identify all soft credit scenarios and map them intentionally.

Timeline and Resource Requirements

Gift migration is time-intensive. Plan appropriately to avoid rushed work and errors.

Typical Timeline:

• Gift Data Audit and Cleanup: 3-6 weeks

• Mapping Design and Documentation: 2-3 weeks

• Test Migration 1: 1 week

• Test Migration 2: 1-2 weeks

• Test Migration 3: 2-3 weeks

• Final Migration and Validation: 1 week

• Post-Migration Monitoring: 4 weeks

Total timeline: 14-20 weeks for comprehensive gift migration, including adequate testing and validation.

Partner with Ohana Focus

Gift data is too important to risk with incomplete migration or inadequate testing. Get expert help to ensure success. Schedule your free consultation today.

Ohana Focus specializes in complex gift migrations that preserve every dollar, every pledge, every recurring gift schedule with perfect accuracy. Our team has successfully migrated millions of gift records for nonprofits of all sizes.

We bring:

• Proven methodologies for gift data mapping

• Experience with both Raiser's Edge and Salesforce NPC

• Rigorous testing protocols

• Validation processes ensuring 99.9%+ accuracy

• Ongoing support to maintain gift data quality

About Ohana Focus

Ohana Focus is a certified Salesforce consulting partner specializing in nonprofit CRM migrations. We understand that gift data is the foundation of fundraising operations, and we treat every donation record with the care and precision it deserves.

Our gift migration expertise comes from hundreds of successful Raiser's Edge to Salesforce projects across diverse nonprofit sectors. When you partner with Ohana Focus for gift migration, you gain consultants who understand both the technical complexity of data transformation and the strategic importance of accurate fundraising data.

Topics: Gift Migration, Donation Data, Salesforce NPC, Raiser's Edge, CRM Migration, Pledge Management, Recurring Gifts, Nonprofit Fundraising, Data Integrity