Customize your appeal

In this article:

What are appeal categories and attributes, and what are they used for?

Customizing your appeal allows you to easily track additional data in your appeal by adding appeal categories and attributes.

Appeal categories are fixed, menu-driven, single- or multi-select values that are applicable to multiple records simultaneously. Examples of appeal categories include, but are not limited to:

  • Donation incentive or thank-you gifts
  • Teams for a fundraising walk or run that an appeal gift is associated with
  • Sponsorship and naming opportunity levels associated with a giving campaign
  • The board member who is assigned to follow up on soliciting a donation or who signed the appeal letter

Appeal attributes are free-form values, date fields, or yes/no or number values that are typically unique to a constituent. Examples of appeal attributes include but are not limited to:

  • Unique appeal ask amounts 
  • Custom phrases to be used in a mailing for a specific constituent
  • Recordings of donor inscriptions for naming opportunities associated with a giving campaign
  • Gift amounts a constituent gave to a previous campaign or appeal 

Appeal categories and attributes can also be used to survey your donors. 

Both appeal categories and appeal attributes can be used in custom LGL Merge Fields. Read more about how to use these merge fields to include information in communications with your appeal audience. 

Add categories and attributes to your appeal

To customize an appeal, click on the Customize button from either the Fundraising > Appeals or the Appeal Details page.

From here, you can view or edit any current customizations that have been made and add new categories and attributes that will be available for tracking extra information about each constituent you contact about your appeal. This information will be appeal-specific. 

Adding an appeal category

When adding a new category, name the category, and then choose whether you would like it to be a single-select or multi-select option. Save the new category .


After the category is created, use the Add values button under your category name. Enter the values into the provided text field and save the categories. 

Adding an appeal attribute

When adding an appeal attribute, provide the name of the attribute and then select the attribute type from the dropdown menu. The available attribute types include short text, long text, date, yes/no, number, currency, and external ID. Save the attribute. The attribute type cannot be updated once it has been saved.

Reviewing and updating your customized appeal

Once the appeal categories and attributes have been saved, you will be able to edit or update a constituent’s appeal record to track this data in your appeal. 

Click on the Actions menu to edit the appeal record.

Make any necessary updates to the appeal categories and attributes. In the example below, only the “Board member to follow up” and “Previous capital project giving” values are being updated because the donor has not yet made a sponsorship-level gift. If they do, the appeal can once again be updated to track that additional data. 

When the appeal record is saved, the appeal categories will update on the appeal record display. While the appeal attribute does not externally display, it is still part of the appeal record that can be included in reports and exported. 

Customize the appeal status dropdown list

The default appeal statuses in LGL are Open, Called, Considering, Declined, and Donated. You can customize the Appeal statuses dropdown list by navigating to Settings > Menu Items> Other menu items. 

Note that these appeal statuses are globally applicable within your account, so they will apply to all appeals in the same way.