Set up recognition tiers

Who can do this Owner, Finance

Recognition levels reward a donor’s total giving to your organisation with a named tier — set up the ladder here before turning recognition on.

An Owner can change which roles have this in Account access.

Before you start

• Recognition is off by default. Turning it on immediately recognises every existing donor at whatever level their lifetime giving already qualifies for — decide your levels first, then switch it on.

Steps

1. Open Donors → Recognition.

   

2. Select Add Level. Give it a name (for example, “Bronze”), a minimum amount, and — for every level except the top one — a maximum amount. Choose a colour and, optionally, a description of what the level includes.

3. Select Save. DonorCARE checks the ladder as you go: levels can’t overlap, and only the highest level can be open-ended with no maximum. A gap between two levels is allowed, but a donor who falls into a gap is shown at the lower of the two.

4. Repeat for each level, ordering them with Display Order so they read low to high.

5. When your ladder is ready, switch Recognition on. This is the confirmation step — turning it on immediately assigns a level to every donor whose lifetime giving already qualifies, based on the ladder you just built.

If something goes wrong

What you see	What it means	What to do
“Levels overlap — ranges must not intersect.”	Two levels share part of their amount range.	Adjust one level’s minimum or maximum so the ranges no longer overlap.
“Only one level can be open-ended (no maximum).”	More than one level was left without a maximum amount.	Give every level except the top one a maximum.
“There’s a gap between levels.”	A range of amounts falls between two levels and doesn’t belong to either.	This is a warning, not an error — a donor landing in the gap is shown at the lower level. Close the gap if that’s not what you want.

Related

• Read a donor profile
• Roles and permissions