Beyond contacts and organisations, three concepts in Relationships record what is happening with your supporters: touchpoints, payments, and fundraising activities. They are easy to confuse, so it’s worth being clear about what each is for.
Touchpoints — interactions
A touchpoint is a record of an interaction with a contact: a phone call, an email exchange, a meeting, a visit, a letter sent. Each touchpoint has a type (Phone call, Email, Meeting…), a direction (inbound or outbound), a date, and free-text notes.
Use touchpoints whenever you want a future colleague (or your future self) to see that we spoke to this person, on this day, about this.
Payments — money received
A payment records a donation or transaction against a contact. Payments build a contact’s giving history: when they gave, how much, by what method, and whether the donation is Gift Aid eligible.
A payment is always linked to a contact. Optionally, it can also be linked to a fundraising activity.
Fundraising activities — campaigns and appeals
A fundraising activity is a campaign, event, or appeal — a named container for fundraising work. A summer auction, a Christmas appeal, a walking challenge, a grant application.
Linking touchpoints and payments to a fundraising activity is what lets you answer “how much did the summer auction raise?” or “who did we speak to during the Christmas appeal?”.
Putting them together
A typical pattern:
- You create a fundraising activity for a campaign.
- You log touchpoints as you contact supporters during the campaign — each one linked to the activity.
- As donations come in, you record payments — also linked to the activity.
- Later, the activity page summarises everything: total raised, contacts touched, full timeline.