Opportunities

Overview

Opportunities help advancement teams track potential future asks before a gift, pledge, or planned gift exists. They are commonly used by major gift officers and advancement teams to manage proposal activity, plan solicitations, monitor pipeline progress, and connect fundraising strategy to eventual giving.

An opportunity belongs to a person or organization record and can store information such as the opportunity name, status, gift officer, anticipated amount, ask amount, ask date, probability, campaign, fund, description, and related notes. Opportunities can also be connected to gifts, pledges, and planned gifts so that received or expected giving can be tied back to the original proposal or fundraising strategy.

While opportunities are often used for major gift work, they are flexible enough to support many types of fundraising activity, including sponsorships, corporate gifts, foundation grants, campaign asks, annual leadership gifts, planned gift conversations, and other proposal-based workflows.

When to Use Opportunities

Use an opportunity when your team wants to track a potential ask or fundraising strategy before the gift is received or committed.

Opportunities are especially helpful when you need to:

• Record a planned or completed ask.
• Assign a gift officer or staff owner.
• Track the ask amount, ask date, probability, and anticipated amount.
• Associate a potential gift with a fund, campaign, or funding type.
• Track where the opportunity sits in your fundraising pipeline.
• Connect received gifts, pledges, or planned gifts back to the original proposal.
• Record notes about conversations, strategy, next steps, or internal planning.
• Report on proposal activity, pipeline totals, and expected fundraising outcomes.

Opportunities are not required for every gift. Smaller transactional gifts often do not need an associated opportunity. Institutions should use their own gift officer workflows, major gift thresholds, sponsorship processes, grant tracking needs, and pipeline management policies to determine when an opportunity should be created.

Opportunities and Fundraising Pipeline Management

Opportunities are often the working space for a gift officer’s proposal activity. They help document the path from an identified potential ask to an eventual outcome.

For example, a gift officer might create an opportunity when a donor is being cultivated for a future campaign commitment. Early in the process, the opportunity might include an anticipated amount, assigned gift officer, fund or campaign, and status. As the relationship progresses, the opportunity can be updated with an ask date, formal asked amount, probability, and notes about conversations or strategy. If the donor later makes a gift, pledge, or planned gift, that giving can be linked back to the opportunity.

This allows advancement teams to see both the individual proposal history and the broader fundraising pipeline. Managers can report on open opportunities, expected revenue, proposal stages, upcoming asks, gift officer portfolios, and the giving that resulted from those opportunities.

Where Opportunities Appear

Opportunities appear on the Giving tab of a person or organization record in the Opportunities section. The list displays opportunities that belong to the record and is sorted by creation date, with the most recent opportunities listed first.

If the record has a relationship to another person or organization with opportunities, a Related Opportunities section will also appear. New opportunities cannot be added directly from the Related Opportunities section but can be edited by the user.

Adding an Opportunity

To add an opportunity:

1. Open the person or organization record.
2. Navigate to the Giving tab.
3. In the Opportunities section, select New Opportunity.
4. Complete the opportunity form.
5. Select Save to save the opportunity.

The Name field is required. All other fields are optional.

Users must have the Giving Update – Opportunities permission to add opportunities. The New Opportunity button does not appear for users who do not have this permission.

Viewing and Editing an Opportunity

Selecting an existing opportunity opens it in display mode. Display mode shows the opportunity information as read-only text. This provides a consistent experience within gifts, pledges, and planned gifts, where existing records open for review before a user chooses to edit them.

Users with the Giving Update – Opportunities permission will see an Edit button in display mode. Selecting Edit opens the opportunity in edit mode.

New opportunities open directly in edit mode because the opportunity is being created for the first time.

The opportunity popup uses the following modes:

To delete an opportunity, open it in edit mode and select Delete. Slate will prompt the user to type DELETE to confirm.

Deleting an opportunity also removes its associated opportunity notes, custom field values, and document attachments. Gifts, pledges, or planned gifts that were linked to the deleted opportunity are not deleted, but the opportunity association is cleared.

In most cases, institutions should consider closing or updating the status of an opportunity instead of deleting it, especially when the opportunity represents historical proposal activity.

Opportunity Fields

The following fields are available on an opportunity. All fields are optional except Name.

The following fields appear in display mode and are calculated or maintained by Slate:

Configuring Opportunity Statuses

Opportunity statuses are configurable prompt values. Institutions can define statuses that match their fundraising pipeline, such as Identification, Qualification, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closed/Won, Closed/Lost, or similar stages.

Opportunity status values can also control whether opportunities appear in the opportunity dropdown when entering a gift, pledge, or planned gift. When a status is configured so that it should not show for opportunity selection, opportunities with that status remain visible on the record but are hidden from the dropdown used during gift entry.

This is useful for closed, inactive, declined, or historical opportunities that should remain part of the record but should not be selected for new giving activity.

Opportunity Splits

Opportunities can be split into multiple linked opportunity records. This is useful when one overall ask needs to be represented across multiple funds, campaigns, gift types, priorities, or proposal purposes.

For example, a single donor conversation might include an ask for both an endowed scholarship and a capital project. Rather than tracking that as one general opportunity, the opportunity can be split so each part of the ask has its own fund, amount, status, notes, and connected giving.

Creating a Split Opportunity

To create a split:

1. Open a new opportunity form.
2. Enter the details for the first opportunity.
3. Select Save & Split.
4. Slate saves the first opportunity and opens a new opportunity form linked to the original split group.
5. Enter the details for the next split.
6. Save the new opportunity.
7. Repeat the process for additional splits as needed.

When using Save & Split, Slate carries forward the date, status, user, and opportunity type from the original opportunity. Other fields are left blank so the user can enter the specific details for the next split.

The Save & Split option appears when creating a new opportunity. It does not appear when editing an existing opportunity.

Viewing Split Opportunities

When an opportunity belongs to a split group, display mode shows a split section with:

Selecting a linked split opportunity opens that opportunity in display mode.

Each opportunity in a split is still its own opportunity record. This means each split can have its own name, status, asked amount, fund, campaign, notes, and connected gifts, pledges, or planned gifts.

Slate does not require the split total to equal a separate parent amount. The split total is calculated from the Asked values entered on the related split opportunities.

Connecting Opportunities to Gifts, Pledges, and Planned Gifts

Opportunities can be connected to gifts, pledges, and planned gifts through the Opportunity field on the gift entry form.

When adding or editing a gift, pledge, or planned gift, the Opportunity dropdown can include:

• Opportunities that belong to the current record.
• Opportunities that belong to related records.
• Opportunities already linked to the gift, pledge, or planned gift.

Selecting an opportunity connects the gift, pledge, or planned gift to that opportunity.

This connection helps advancement teams understand which gifts resulted from specific proposal activity. It also allows the opportunity to display expected and received totals based on linked giving.

Expected and Received Amounts

Opportunities display calculated giving totals in display mode.

These values help users understand the giving connected to the opportunity without needing to review each linked gift separately.

When available, users can view the gifts, pledges, or planned gifts that contribute to these totals from the opportunity display.

Opportunity Notes

Each opportunity includes a Notes log for recording narrative specific to that opportunity. Notes can be used for contact history, proposal strategy, internal planning, next steps, or other context that should remain tied to the opportunity.

Each note includes:

To add a note, open the opportunity and select New Note. Existing notes can be opened for editing by selecting the note date.

Users must have the Giving Update – Opportunities permission to add, edit, or delete opportunity notes. Users with view access can view notes but cannot modify them.

In imports, opportunity notes are represented as Opportunity Log entries.

Reporting on Opportunities

Opportunities can support pipeline reporting across gift officers, statuses, campaigns, funds, ask dates, and expected fundraising activity.

Common reporting questions include:

• Which opportunities are currently open?
• Which opportunities are assigned to each gift officer?
• What is the total asked amount by status, campaign, fund, or officer?
• Which opportunities have upcoming ask dates?
• Which opportunities have resulted in gifts, pledges, or planned gifts?

Managing Opportunities Through Imports

Opportunities, opportunity notes, and links between opportunities and gifts can be managed through imports when institutions are migrating data or maintaining proposal information in bulk.

Customizing the Opportunity List View

The Opportunities list on a record’s Giving tab can be customized. Administrators can configure the list view for the opportunity scope to determine which columns appear.

This allows institutions to tailor the Opportunities section to match their workflows. For example, a major gifts team might choose to display status, gift officer, asked amount, ask date, probability, and campaign. A corporate relations team might choose to display company-related proposal fields, funding type, sponsorship amount, and next steps.

Permissions

Recommended Workflows

Opening a New Opportunity

When a gift officer identifies a potential ask, create an opportunity on the person or organization record. Add the opportunity name, status, assigned user, anticipated amount, and any known fund or campaign.

At this stage, the opportunity can be used for planning, even if a formal ask has not yet been made.

Managing the Opportunity Through the Pipeline

As the relationship progresses, update the opportunity status, probability, ask date, and asked amount. Use opportunity notes to record important conversations, internal strategy, proposal updates, and next steps.

This creates a shared record of the proposal process and helps managers understand the current state of the pipeline.

Connecting Giving Back to the Opportunity

When a gift, pledge, or planned gift is received or committed, select the related opportunity on the gift entry form. This connects the giving back to the proposal activity and updates the opportunity’s expected or received totals.

Splitting an Ask Across Multiple Purposes

Use Save & Split when one proposal needs to be tracked across multiple funds, campaigns, or priorities. Each split can have its own asked amount, fund, campaign, and related giving.

This is helpful when one donor conversation includes multiple components, such as a scholarship fund, capital project, sponsorship, or planned gift conversation.

Closing or Resolving an Opportunity

When an opportunity is no longer active, update the status to the appropriate closed, declined, inactive, or completed status. This preserves historical proposal activity while keeping active opportunity lists and dropdowns cleaner.

Deleting should generally be reserved for opportunities created in error.

Troubleshooting

The New Opportunity Button Does Not Appear

The user likely does not have the Giving Update – Opportunities permission. Review the user’s role permissions.

An Opportunity Does Not Appear in the Gift Entry Dropdown

The opportunity’s status might be configured not to show in the opportunity dropdown. The opportunity might also belong to a different record that is not related to the current record.

Review the opportunity status configuration and the relationships between the relevant records.

Expected or Received Amounts Show $0

Expected and Received amounts are based on gifts, pledges, and planned gifts linked to the opportunity. Confirm that the giving record has the correct opportunity selected.

Split Total Does Not Match the Intended Ask

Split Total is calculated from the Asked amounts on the related split opportunities. Review each split opportunity to confirm the asked amounts are entered correctly.

Slate does not enforce a required target total for the split group.

Imported Opportunity Notes Are Not Appearing

Opportunity Log entries are deduplicated during import using source, date, opportunity, and subject. Check whether the imported row matched an existing log entry.

Deleting an Opportunity Removed Its Notes

Deleting an opportunity also deletes the notes, custom field values, and document attachments associated with that opportunity. This is expected behavior. For historical proposal activity, update the opportunity status instead of deleting the record.