How soft credits work
Soft credits let you recognise people who helped bring in a donation, even though they are not the donor. MoveData creates soft credits automatically based on your campaign hierarchy.
What is a soft credit?#
A soft credit is a record that links a contact to a donation they influenced but did not make themselves. Common examples include:
- A fundraiser who raised money on behalf of a charity through a peer-to-peer campaign.
- A team captain who organised a group of fundraisers.
- A campaign organiser who set up the event.
Soft credits do not change the donation amount or the primary donor. They give you a way to report on who drove fundraising results.
When MoveData creates soft credits#
Soft credits are created during the post-processing step of the donation pipeline, after the donation record itself is saved. MoveData looks at the campaign hierarchy attached to the donation and creates credits for contacts at each level.
The campaign hierarchy typically has up to three levels:
- Campaign or event — the top-level campaign. The contact associated with the campaign record may receive a soft credit.
- Team — a team within the campaign. The contact associated with the team record receives a soft credit.
- Fundraiser — an individual fundraiser page. The fundraiser contact receives a soft credit.
Note
Soft credits go to contacts in the campaign hierarchy — not to the primary donor. The donor is already recorded on the donation itself.
A peer-to-peer example#
Imagine Sarah creates a fundraising page for a charity run, under a team led by Marcus, for a campaign organised by the charity.
- A supporter donates $50 through Sarah's page.
- MoveData creates the donation record against the supporter's contact.
- During post-processing, MoveData creates soft credits for:
- Sarah (the fundraiser) — because the donation came through her page.
- Marcus (the team captain) — because Sarah's page belongs to his team.
This lets the charity report on how much each fundraiser and team captain helped raise.
NPSP vs Nonprofit Cloud#
The way soft credits are stored differs between NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud.
| Feature | NPSP | Nonprofit Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Soft credit record type | Opportunity Contact Role | Native soft credit record |
| Linked to | Opportunity | Gift Transaction |
| Role name | Configurable | Configurable |
In both models, MoveData checks for existing soft credit records before creating new ones to avoid duplicates.
Success
You can customise the role names used for soft credits. Check your integration settings for the available options.