Use this link to share with your colleagues:
How to Set Up Contact Roles: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/2024059
Contact Roles are a useful way to anecdotally track how Contacts relate to a Donation or Opportunity.
For example, what if someone helped bring in a gift, and you'd like to note that without creating another Donation record for a Soft Credit.
In this article, we'll go over:
- How to view Contact Roles
- What Contact Roles exist by default
- How to add custom Contact Roles
At the end, we have some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
Where to find Contact Roles
Contact Roles can be found by viewing the Contact Roles Related List on a Donation.
Don't see the Contact Roles related list on a Donation? Add it to the page layout!
Default Contact Roles
By default, the following Contact Roles are available on Donations:
- Donor: Designates the person who made the donation; automatically assigned to the Contact listed as the Contact on the Donation record
- Soft Credit: Designates for anecdotal purposes who helped bring in a donation; can be manually assigned as an additional optional way to track soft creditors after creating a Soft Credit
- For more information, check out this FAQ
- Solicitor: Designates for anecdotal purposes who helped bring in a donation; must be manually assigned
- Household Credit: Designates for anecdotal purposes if someone else in the same Account should also be credited for the donation
- Unless your organization has a specific workflow or purpose for Household Credit Contact Roles, we don't typically recommend doing this because you can always report on giving at the Account-level
How to add custom Contact Roles
While there are four default Contact Roles for Donations, you can create custom ones for tracking how people are connected to a Donation record.
For example, what if you want to track what Contact a Donation was made in honor of? You can create a custom Contact Role to do just that.
Creating custom Contact Roles is similar to creating new picklist field values!
1. Click the gear icon to go to Setup
2. Go to Object Manager
3. Find and select Donation Contact Role
4. Click Fields & Relationships
5. Click Role
6. In Opportunity Contact Role Picklist Values, click New
7. Enter the new Contact Role(s) you wish to add, then click Save
Now your new Contact Role will be available when adding a Contact Role to a Donation!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
If the only Contact Role you're missing is "Household Credit," don't fear!
Any organizations created after January 2026 will not have this Contact Role.
If you're not seeing the default Contact Roles as available picklist values on your Donations, check the picklist in Setup's Object Manager to make sure that the default Contact Roles are active values.
If a Contact Role is in the Inactive Values section, click "Activate" to make it available for selection.
If a default value isn't there at all, you can manually create it.
To manually assign a Contact Role to a Donation, hover over the Contact Roles Related List Quick Link and click Add Contact Roles
If you need to edit existing Contact Roles on a Donation, click Edit Contact Roles instead!
Search for the Contact you need to add and select them
Click Next
Select a Role from the picklist
And Save!
Our general recommendation is to:
- Use a Soft Credit donation if you want the amount of the Soft Credit to count towards that person's giving history, including donation rollups if you have them set up to do so, in a reportable manner
- Use a Soft Credit Contact Role if you don't want the gift to count towards that person's giving history, but want to see this information when you view the original Donation record or the Contact's Donation records from the Donations Related List