📌 Note: Text messages are available as add-ons. For more information on adding new features please see the add-ons page in your nation.

Where to Start

You'll find support level within a person's profile, under Edit > Settings.

Support level clearly defines support status

Support level indicates whether a person supports an organization's mission. Support level is a 5-point scale, with 1 indicating strong support and 5 indicating strong opposition. People with support level of 1 or 2 will always be supporters, while people with support level of 4 or 5 will always be non-supporters.

A person whose support level is "3 - Undecided," can be a supporter, prospect or a non-supporter.

Editing support level from blank to 3 will have no impact on support status.
If a person has support level 1 or 2 and is changed to support level 3, the person will become a non-supporter.
If a person has support level is 4 or 5 and is changed to support level 3, the person will remain a non-supporter.
If a person with support level 3 has not taken a supportive action in your nation, the person can be changed from a non-supporter to a prospect.

It may be confusing that people with support level 3 - Undecided are not always prospects. The "prospect" support status is primarily used to gather people who have neither opted in nor opted out of email communication from your organization.

You can edit support level:

Since identifying support level is key to organizing people, we recommend updating support level every time interaction occurs.

Defining the support level for each profile can be tedious, so we have an automated process will approximate support status when support level doesn't exist. Support status primarily distinguishes between people based on whether or not they have opted into mass communication. Non-supporters will never be included in mass communication (however, you can communicate one on one with anyone in your database). Text message blasts can only be sent to supporters. You can send email blasts to supporters or to prospects.

How actions determine support status

If a person does not have a support level, the actions they have taken will be used to determine their support status.

These actions make prospect or non-supporter become a supporter:

Donating
Volunteering
Fundraising
Becoming a member
Opting into email blasts and providing an email address
Opting into text messages and providing a mobile phone number

Donors, volunteers, members, and fundraisers will remain supporters if they unsubscribe or unfollow.

When prospects take a positive action, they become supporters. When prospects take a negative action, they remain prospects.

People can only come into your database as prospects via import.

Actions are used as a rough guide to defining a person's support status. By updating a person's support level, you can override the support status set by a person's actions.

Import support status

During a one-time import, a decision needs to be made whether the import includes supporters / non-supporters or prospects.

If the records being imported are people who have opted into communication, select Supporters / Non-supporters. Any new profile created with an email address, mobile phone number, Facebook username/ID, or Twitter login/ID will be labeled a supporter. New profiles imported without one of these elements--email address, mobile number, Facebook, or Twitter--will be labeled non-supporters.

If the records being imported are people who have not opted into communication, select Prospects. When prospects is selected, all profiles created will be labeled prospects, including records with email address, mobile number, Facebook username/ID, or Twitter login/ID.

When records are imported with support level and opt-in status, the above rules will not apply.

Records imported with the following will always be supporters:

support level = 1
support level = 2
email address and email opt-in = Y
mobile number and mobile opt-in = Y

Records imported with the following will always be non-supporters:

support level = 4
support level = 5
email opt-in = N
mobile opt-in = N

Support level is more important than opt-in status. For example, if a record is imported with support level = 4 and email opt-in = Y, the profile created will be a non-supporter.

One-time imports updating existing profiles may change the support status on those profiles. The expectation is that the first goal of engaging prospects is to determine whether they are supporters or non-supporters. The status will be applied to new people through your import, but will not update existing people unless the box is checked to overwrite data.

A new profile created during a donation import will always be a supporter, unless the record includes support level 4 or 5.

Similarly, a new profile created during a membership import will always be a supporter, unless the record includes support level 4 or 5.

New profiles created during a voter file import will always be prospects, unless the records includes support level.

Edit support status in a profile

Since supporters know about an organization and prospects do not, a supporter can only become a non-supporter. You aren't able to change supporters into prospects.

Here are some examples -

Maria was originally added to the database as a prospect. When I edit her profile, I can change her support status to non-supporter. I could also edit her support level.

On the other hand, Anneke was originally added to the database as a supporter. When I edit her profile, the only way I can make her a non-supporter is by editing her support level.

Since the prospect label is intended exclusively for people who haven't yet engaged with the organization, Anneke can only be labeled as a supporter or a non-supporter.