People and Outreach

Manage contacts, tasks, activity, tags, segments, volunteers, and email campaigns with a clean operating model.

Givebear's people tools help staff answer a practical question: who needs attention next? The answer might come from donation history, event registration, volunteer work, a task, a tag, a segment, or a planned email campaign.

People model

Tool	Best use	Avoid using it for
Contacts	The central person record for donors, registrants, volunteers, and community members.	One-off notes that belong on a task or activity entry.
Activity	A timeline of what happened with a person or organization.	Permanent classification. Use tags or segments for that.
Tasks	Follow-up work assigned to staff.	Long-term labels or campaign membership.
Tags	Manual labels with clear meaning.	Dynamic audiences that should update automatically.
Segments	Saved audiences based on criteria.	Personal reminders. Use tasks instead.
Email campaigns	Outbound communication to selected audiences.	Fixing messy data. Clean contact records first.
Volunteers	Operational volunteer tracking when the add-on is enabled.	General donor classification if no volunteer workflow exists.

Start with clean contacts

Before sending outreach, make contact records usable:

Confirm names and emails are spelled correctly.
Merge or clean obvious duplicates if your workflow supports it.
Keep tags short and intentional.
Do not tag every temporary thought.
Use activity to record what happened.
Use tasks to record what must happen next.

Good contact hygiene makes the rest of the system feel calm. Poor contact hygiene turns every segment and email list into guesswork.

When should I use tags?

Use tags when a human decision matters. Examples:

Major donor prospect.
Board member.
Volunteer lead.
Ramadan follow-up.
Needs receipt help.

Do not use tags for facts that already exist elsewhere, such as "donated once" or "registered for event", unless the dashboard does not yet expose the exact segment you need.

When should I use segments?

Use segments when the audience should be derived from data. A segment might represent recent donors, event attendees, recurring donors, or people with a specific tag.

Before sending an email campaign to a segment, review:

Does the audience match the message?
Are excluded people truly excluded?
Does the contact count look reasonable?
Is the message tied to a fund, campaign, event, or update that the recipient understands?

Tasks and activity

Activity explains history. Tasks drive action.

Use activity for notes such as "Called about annual sponsorship" or "Asked for corrected receipt." Use tasks for work such as "Follow up with Aisha on Friday" or "Send year-end statement."

Tasks should have a clear owner and a real next step. If a task is vague enough that nobody can finish it, rewrite it before assigning it.

Email campaigns

Email campaigns work best when they are connected to a clear audience and purpose. Strong examples:

Thank recent donors after a campaign.
Invite past attendees to a new event.
Ask recurring donors to update payment details.
Send volunteer instructions before an event.

Weak examples:

Sending to every contact because the list exists.
Asking for donations without a destination.
Announcing an event without registration details.

Volunteer workflows

If Volunteer Program is enabled, treat volunteers as people with scheduled responsibilities, not just donors with a label. Keep volunteer notes and follow-up tasks specific enough that another staff member can take over.