Overview
The Giving tab on a person record provides a centralized view of a constituent’s philanthropic activity in Slate. It is designed to help users quickly understand a person’s giving history, current commitments, recurring activity, proposal activity, tribute-related giving, and potential matching gifts.
The Giving tab is especially useful for advancement users who need a real-time picture of a donor’s relationship with the institution. Information displayed on the Giving tab reflects the current data in Slate, so users are seeing up-to-the-second giving information as gifts, pledges, recurring payments, opportunities, and other related records are added or updated.
The Giving tab includes several subtabs:
- Overview
- Gifts
- Pledges
- Planned Giving
- Recurring
- Opportunities
- Honored By
- Potential Matching Gifts
The Overview subtab displays by default when a user selects the Giving tab.
Who uses the Giving tab?
The Giving tab is useful for anyone who works with donor or constituent information in Slate, including:
| User type | How they may use the Giving tab |
|---|---|
| Gift officers | Review giving history, active opportunities, pledges, and recent activity before donor outreach. |
| Advancement services staff | Review gifts, pledges, recurring payments, planned gifts, and matching gift activity. |
| Donor relations and stewardship staff | Understand what a donor has supported and identify giving activity that may require acknowledgment or stewardship. |
| Annual giving staff | Review recurring gifts, recent giving, appeals, and matching gift potential. |
| Advancement leadership | Get a high-level picture of a donor’s giving relationship with the institution. |
| Slate administrators | Configure dashboard content, permissions, and views to support institutional workflows. |
Opening the Giving tab
To view a person’s giving information:
- Open the person record.
- Select the Giving tab.
- Slate displays the Overview subtab by default.
- Use the subtab navigation to move between giving areas.
Overview subtab
The Overview subtab is the default landing page for the Giving tab. It provides a dashboard-style summary of the person’s giving activity.
This page is intended to orient users quickly. Rather than requiring users to open each giving area individually, the Overview can surface the most important giving indicators in one place.
The standard overview dashboard includes information such as:
- Lifetime giving
- Fiscal year giving
- Most recent gift
- Largest gift
- Household giving
- Giving by fiscal year
- Consecutive-year giving
- Top supported areas
- Active recurring donation information
- Pledge summaries
- Opportunity summaries
- Recent gifts
- Links to related giving areas
The Overview is a useful starting point when preparing for a donor conversation, reviewing a constituent’s philanthropic relationship, or deciding which giving area to investigate next.
Customizing the Overview dashboard
The Overview dashboard is available by default, but it can be customized. Institutions can adjust the content, calculations, layout, and design to match their advancement strategy and reporting needs.
Administrators may choose to:
- Add new data points.
- Edit existing values or labels.
- Change the layout or visual design.
- Add institution-specific metrics.
- Highlight different information for different audiences.
- Replace the default dashboard with a fully customized version.
Because the Overview can be customized, it may look different from one institution to another. The goal is to provide a clear, useful summary of the giving information most relevant to users at that institution. Customization of this dashboard takes place within Slate's Portals tool.
Gifts subtab
The Gifts subtab displays gift activity associated with the person record.
This area is commonly used to review the person’s gift history, including gifts made online, entered administratively, imported, or recorded through other giving workflows. Users with the appropriate permissions may also add a new gift from this subtab.
The Gifts subtab can display any relevant values from the gift record, based on the institution’s configuration and the user’s customized view. For example, an institution may choose to display gift dates, amounts, funds, campaigns, appeals, statuses, soft credit information, or other gift-related details.
Use the Gifts subtab when you need to review individual gift records or understand the donor’s giving activity at the transaction level.
Pledges subtab
The Pledges subtab displays pledge commitments associated with the person.
A pledge represents a commitment to give, often over time. This subtab helps users understand the person’s pledged commitments, how much has been received, and what may remain outstanding. Users with the appropriate permissions may also add a new pledge from this subtab.
The Pledges table can be customized to show relevant values from the pledge record, such as pledge amount, received amount, remaining balance, fund, campaign, status, payment information, or other pledge-related details.
Use the Pledges subtab when you need to review open commitments, pledge progress, or pledge-related giving activity.
Planned Giving subtab
The Planned Giving subtab displays planned gift records associated with the person.
Planned gifts are often used to track future or deferred philanthropic intentions, such as bequests, estate commitments, beneficiary designations, trusts, annuities, or other gift planning arrangements. Users with the appropriate permissions may also add a new planned gift from this subtab.
The Planned Giving table can be configured to show the planned giving information most relevant to the institution, such as amount, fund, campaign, status, received value, or other planned gift details.
Use the Planned Giving subtab when you need to understand known planned giving intentions or review future philanthropic commitments connected to the person.
Recurring subtab
The Recurring subtab displays recurring donation activity associated with the person.
Recurring donations are scheduled gifts that repeat over time, such as monthly or annual contributions. This subtab helps users review whether a donor has recurring giving activity, whether a recurring gift is active, and when future payments are expected.
The Recurring table can be customized to show relevant recurring donation values, such as payment account, payment status, next payment date, amount, frequency, active status, or other recurring gift details.
Use the Recurring subtab when you need to review ongoing sustaining gifts or confirm the status of a donor’s recurring payment schedule.
Opportunities subtab
The Opportunities subtab displays fundraising opportunities or proposals associated with the person.
Opportunities are commonly used to track prospective asks, major gift proposals, campaign solicitations, naming opportunities, grants, sponsorships, or other fundraising strategies. Institutions may use the term opportunity or proposal depending on their internal terminology. Users with the appropriate permissions may also add a new opportunity from this subtab.
The Opportunities table can be customized to show relevant values from the opportunity record, such as opportunity name, status, assigned user, anticipated ask, expected amount, received amount, fund, campaign, or other proposal-related information.
Use the Opportunities subtab when you need to understand active or historical fundraising strategies connected to the person.
Honored By subtab
The Honored By subtab displays tribute gifts made by others in honor or memory of the person.
This area is useful when the person is the tribute subject rather than the donor. For example, if other constituents make gifts in honor of this person, those gifts can appear on the person’s Honored By subtab.
The Honored By table can be customized to show relevant values from the associated tribute gift records, such as the contributing record, gift amount, fund, tribute information, status, or other gift details.
Use the Honored By subtab when you need to review tribute-related giving connected to the person.
Potential Matching Gifts subtab
The Potential Matching Gifts subtab displays potential employer matching gifts associated with the person’s giving.
Potential matching gifts help advancement teams identify gifts that may be eligible for a match from an employer, company, or foundation. This subtab can support follow-up with donors and tracking of expected matching gift activity. Depending on permissions, users may also be able to add or manage potential matching gifts from this subtab.
Use this subtab when you need to review possible matching gift opportunities connected to the person’s gifts.
Customizing subtab views
Most subtabs on the Giving tab display information in tables. These tables can be adjusted using the Customize View feature to allow users the ability to choose the information most relevant to their work.
Rather than being limited to a fixed set of columns, users can display values from the underlying gift, pledge, planned gift, recurring, opportunity, tribute, or matching gift records as appropriate.
For example:
- A gift officer may want to see opportunity status, expected amount, and assigned user.
- An advancement services user may want to see gift status, fund, campaign, and processing details.
- A donor relations user may want to see tribute information, fund, and giving purpose.
- An annual giving user may want to see recurring gift status, appeal information, and matching gift potential.
Customized views allow different users to work from the same real-time Slate data while focusing on the details that matter most to their role.
Real-time giving information
The Giving tab reflects current information in Slate. As giving-related records are added, updated, imported, or processed, the Giving tab reflects those changes in real time.
This is important because advancement users often rely on the Giving tab before taking action with a donor. A gift officer preparing for a meeting, a stewardship user reviewing recognition activity, or an advancement services user checking pledge status can use the Giving tab as the current source of information on the person record.
Troubleshooting
I do not see the Giving tab.
You may not have permission to view giving information, or the tab may not be configured for the record type you are viewing. Contact your Slate administrator.
I clicked Giving, but I only see the Overview.
The Overview displays by default. Use the subtab navigation to access Gifts, Pledges, Planned Giving, Recurring, Opportunities, Honored By, or Potential Matching Gifts.
I do not see the same columns as another user.
Your table view may be customized differently, or your permissions may limit what you can see. Use the Customize View feature to adjust your display, or contact your Slate administrator if expected values are unavailable.
I do not see an option to add a new gift, pledge, planned gift, opportunity, or potential matching gift.
You may not have the necessary permissions to add that type of record. Contact your Slate administrator.
The Overview dashboard looks different from another Slate database.
The Overview dashboard can be customized by each institution. Different databases may display different metrics, layouts, labels, or summaries.
The giving information changed after I refreshed the page.
The Giving tab displays real-time Slate data. If a gift, pledge, recurring payment, opportunity, or related record was recently added or updated, the Giving tab may reflect that change immediately.
Summary
The Giving tab provides a real-time, person-centered view of a constituent’s philanthropic activity in Slate. The Overview subtab offers a customizable dashboard summary, while the additional subtabs provide focused views of gifts, pledges, planned gifts, recurring donations, opportunities, tribute-related giving, and potential matching gifts.
For most users, the best workflow is to begin with the Overview, then move into the relevant subtab for more detail. For administrators, the Giving tab can be configured and customized to support the institution’s advancement strategy, terminology, reporting needs, and user roles.