Preparing Your Data for Import – Kindful Help Center

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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