At the core of Kindful is your database: a place for you to create, store, and reference your donors’ information. But a database is only as good as its data. Which is why you’ll need to move everything over to Kindful as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
In this process, before we even begin importing anything, there are many details to consider in gathering and preparing your data.
Overview
- Download the correct Template. Our CSV templates on the import tool page must be used and your source data must fit into our templates. More on the templates later in this guide.
- Import your data into your Sandbox (testing) account. Sandbox is a separate, temporary environment that allows you to verify your data was matched into Kindful correctly before finalizing the move.
- Match and Verify your data and finalize your import to show in your live account.
Before you begin
If you're planning to import contact data, transaction data, or both into Kindful, you're in the right place. If you're trying to import something other than contact or transaction data, it's probably a good time for you to contact support.
If you’re the one who will be diving into Kindful’s data importing, we suggest you’re a technical user comfortable with CSV files. You should understand the structure and format of your source data to prevent any errors when importing.
Types of data that can be imported:
- Contacts (person or organization contacts)
- New transactions (only cash, check, credit, stock, or EFT transactions)
You can find our templates in the Kindful app when you begin an Import Data job.
Other considerations
Following are the accepted transaction types for the Import Tool.
- Credit Card
- Cash
- Check
- EFT
- Paypal
- Square
- Stock
Of Note: All of these transaction types will import with or without ‘Transaction’ at the end. Credit Cards could say "Credit Card" or just "Credit". EFT can also say "Electronic Fund Transfer".
There are two considerations when it comes to importing campaigns and funds.
- If your source file contains a campaign column, and you have a campaign in Kindful with the same name, the import will update the existing campaign
- If campaigns in your source file are not consistent with campaigns in Kindful, new campaigns will be created
- The Import Wizard will assign transactions without a specified fund name or campaign name to a "General" fund or "General" campaign
If any of the following applies to you, we recommend you go a different route to import your data. Please contact us to learn more about our Custom Services.
- If you could use expert advice and best practices matching your specific data to Kindful
- If you need to import groups, relationships, soft credits, pledges, non-cash gifts, documents, notes, or crowdfunding teams
- If you need to import campaign data other than campaign name
File formats
The types of files and formatting you use are the most important piece to importing your data correctly. Please make sure you follow our guidelines.
- The Import Wizard ONLY accepts CSV files
- Please use our templates – copy data from your files into the templates we provide. These can be downloaded in the import flow within Kindful
- The maximum file size accepted is 256MB
- The first row needs to contain the field names (e.g. First Name, Email, Mobile Phone)
- Make sure every column has a header or it won’t be imported
- Each record must take up only one line
- All your distinct fields must be organized into their own columns
- Please ensure your files contain ONLY records, excluding fields like totals or photos
About the templates
Based on what you're importing, there are three template options.
Purpose of Import | Template to Use | Requirement |
Update Existing Contacts | Contacts CSV |
Contact must match on First name, last name and email of contact |
Add New Contacts Only | Contacts CSV | |
Add New Transactions to Existing Contacts |
Transactions CSV |
Contact must match on First name, last name and email of contact |
Add New Contacts with New transactions |
Contacts and Transactions CSV |
- Contacts CSV – for new contacts or to append existing ones provided there is a match on first name, last name, and email address.
- Transactions CSV – new transactions for existing contacts. To be able to append properly, you must have a First Name, Last Name, and Email on the Contact profile in Kindful that matches those same three fields exactly in the file you are importing.
-
Contacts and Transactions CSV – new contacts only. To add transactions to existing contacts use the Transactions CSV template. To update existing contacts and add transactions to those contacts use two separate templates, one Contacts CSV and one Transactions CSV, and upload them separately.
Of note, this import option (Contacts and Transactions) does use two templates provided in the Import Data flow - one for contacts and one for transactions. These two separate templates must both be uploaded in the same import and imported on the same import job (upload two files). For the contact ID, you choose this; it is an arbitrary ID you create. It can be as simple as repeating the contact's name. This will associate the donors from the transactions file with the donors on the contacts file.
If you uploaded the contacts separately without uploading a transactions file on the same import job, you can use the "Transactions Only (for existing contacts)" option and template. This will link the transactions to the contacts already in Kindful.
The First Name, Last Name, and Email for the contacts in the import template will need to exactly match what is already in the existing contact profiles in Kindful that were created from the first import. If any of these pieces are missing or don't exactly match, then duplicate contacts may be created.
Note: Make sure any date formatting matches the following: mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy |
More resources
List of fields available for import in our Data Import Tool
Contacts
- Contact - Name
- Contact - Address
- Contact - Address 2
- Contact - Alternate Email
- Contact - Alt. Phone Number
- Contact - Alt. Phone Number 2
- Contact - Alumnus
- Contact - Birthday (mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy)
- Contact - Church
- Contact - City
- Contact - Comments
- Contact - Country
- Contact - County
- Contact - Created At (mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy)
- Contact - Custom Field
- Contact - Deceased
- Contact - Email
- Contact - Emergency Contact
- Contact - Emergency Phone
- Contact - Employer
- Contact - Fax
- Contact - First and Last Name
- Contact - First Name
- Contact - Formal Letter Name
- Contact - Gender
- Contact - ID
- Contact - Informal Letter Name
- Contact - Last Name
- Contact - Middle Name
- Contact - Mobile Phone
- Contact - Name Prefix
- Contact - Name Suffix
- Contact - Occupation
- Contact - Phone
- Contact - Postal Code
- Contact - Preferred Name
- Contact - Retired or Not Employed
- Contact - Spouse
- Contact - Spouse Email
- Contact - Spouse Occupation
- Contact - Spouse Phone
- Contact - State
- Contact - Title
- Contact - Website
- Contact - Work Phone
- Organization Name
Funds
- Campaign – Name
- Fund - Name
Transactions
- Transaction - Acknowledged
- Transaction - Amount in Dollars
- Transaction - Card Last Four
- Transaction - Check Number
- Transaction - Contact ID
- Transaction - Custom Text 1
- Transaction - Custom Text 2
- Transaction - Custom Text 3
- Transaction - Date (mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy)
- Transaction - Non Tax Deductible Amount
- Transaction - Note
- Transaction - Type
List of Countries
Kindful has taken measures to lessen the number of instances where a CSV's country imports incorrectly.
Outside of the United States, our biggest imported countries are Canada and Australia. We have advanced logic that happens in real-time to automatically match the imported CSV values to the correct country. This includes multiple versions of the Country name and codes, including all caps versions of the 2 and 3 letter country codes or country name, as well as all lower case.
We additionally support ISO Alpha-3 Country Codes. These are the three-letter country codes you may have on an import files such as USA, CAN, AUS, EGY, etc. This means if you use the country's three-letter code, it will auto map to the corresponding Kindful country.
Here is the list of supported countries:
- Afghanistan
- Aland Islands
- Albania
- Algeria
- American Samoa
- Andorra
- Angola
- Anguilla
- Antarctica
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Aruba
- Australia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Belize
- Benin
- Bermuda
- Bhutan
- Bolivia
- Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Bouvet Island
- Brazil
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- British Virgin Islands
- Brunei
- Bulgaria
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cambodia
- Cameroon
- Canada
- Cape Verde
- Cayman Islands
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Chile
- China
- Christmas Island
- Cocos Islands
- Colombia
- Comoros
- Cook Islands
- Costa Rica
- Croatia
- Cuba
- Curacao
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Denmark
- Djibouti
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- East Timor
- Ecuador
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Estonia
- Ethiopia
- Falkland Islands
- Faroe Islands
- Fiji
- Finland
- France
- French Guiana
- French Polynesia
- French Southern Territories
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Georgia
- Germany
- Ghana
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Greenland
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guam
- Guatemala
- Guernsey
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Heard Island and McDonald Islands
- Honduras
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Iceland
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Israel
- Italy
- Ivory Coast
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Jersey
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Kosovo
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macao
- Macedonia
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mali
- Malta
- Marshall Islands
- Martinique
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mayotte
- Mexico
- Micronesia
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Montserrat
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Myanmar
- Namibia
- Nauru
- Nepal
- Netherlands
- Netherlands Antilles
- New Caledonia
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- North Korea
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Norway
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palau
- Palestinian Territory
- Panama
- Papua New Guinea
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Philippines
- Pitcairn
- Poland
- Portugal
- Puerto Rico
- Qatar
- Republic of the Congo
- Reunion
- Romania
- Russia
- Rwanda
- Saint Barthelemy
- Saint Helena
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Martin
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Samoa
- San Marino
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Serbia
- Serbia and Montenegro
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Singapore
- Sint Maarten
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Solomon Islands
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- South Korea
- South Sudan
- Spain
- Sri Lanka
- Sudan
- Suriname
- Svalbard and Jan Mayen
- Swaziland
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Syria
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Togo
- Tokelau
- Tonga
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- Tuvalu
- U.S. Virgin Islands
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- United States
- United States Minor Outlying Islands
- Uruguay
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu
- Vatican
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
- Wallis and Futuna
- Western Sahara
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
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