Basic searching and filtering

Overview

LGL enables you to search for constituents by gift history, location, and/or category. You can also drill down into a set of constituent search results, looking at individual categories as filters.

Searching with multiple criteria

Little Green Light gives you many options for searching your constituent data. To get a look at them all, you can click the dropdown menu in the Advanced Search area on the Constituents tab:

Simply select the option you want to search by, and then define the parameters for that search field:

NOTE: Whenever you search in the Constituents tab for constituents by their gift record information, the gift types for those gifts are automatically added to the search criteria. This is to clarify which gift types are being included in your search results. The gift types will be set by default based on your account settings. You can update these settings by navigating to Settings > Subscription Settings > Gift Settings and adjusting your selections within the Default gift types section of the page.

You can search constituents by more than one criteria as well, by clicking Add more criteria. Here are additional actions you can take as you're building your search:

NOTE: You can also remove criteria by clicking the "x" to the left of the criteria statement.

Now let's take a look at a few common searches.

The classic LYBUNT search

LYBUNTs are donors who gave last year but not this year, accessible via a simple query by "Last gift dates" and "Gift types":

NOTE: The "Last gift dates" criteria searches the last gift to any combination of campaigns, funds, appeals, or events.

First-time donors this year

Finding first-time donors in LGL for a given date range is also quite simple—just like LYBUNTs, but using "First gift dates" instead of "Last gift dates":

Donors to a particular campaign

You may want to see who donated to a particular campaign, fund, event, or appeal. The process is the same for all, but we’ll show you a campaign search here. We are going to use “First gift dates” and “Campaigns (giving)” to find constituents who gave their first gift to a particular campaign. We could also add “Gift types” if we restrict it to a specific type of gift (Gift, Pledge, etc.), beyond your default gift type settings.

Constituents who gave or pledged more than $500 total this fiscal year

In this case, we are not concerned with the campaign, appeal, fund, or event, but instead with "First gift dates", "Total Giving Amt.", and "Gift types":

A mailing list

Mailing lists are the bread and butter of any donor management system, and you can use the constituent search to easily create those—in the form of reports/exports, lists, or both. Either way, you'll want to start with a query on "Can send mail?", which automatically excludes constituents who:

Don't have at least one valid or active mailing address
Have been flagged as "Do not mail"
Are marked "Deceased"

This is a good starting point for any mailing list, and you can then combine it with other criteria to hone in on the exact constituents you need for any particular mailing.

NOTE: See the Mailings Overview article for details on how to create a mailing.

Filtering search results

Filters provide a great way to visualize the results for any query. They also help to quickly narrow down your search results.

Filters appear to the left of your search results:

Clicking on a filter will narrow your search results accordingly:

Searching by category

If you want to query by multiple filters, use the main Advanced Search feature, search for any value under Category (for example, "Groups"), and click the Select button to choose the ones you want to search by: