Goodworld’s data import functionality enables you to seamlessly upload contact and donation data to your platform. This helps you maintain complete records, activate past campaign data, and leverage segmentation through our powerful tagging and grouping infrastructure.
In this article, we’ll walk you through how to import donations and contacts, how to map your data using groups and tags, and highlight some key use cases—including Membership tagging for affinity groups.
What You Can Import
Donations
Import past giving history to ensure your donation data is comprehensive and connected to the right campaigns and donors.
Use case: Upload multi-year donations history or previous workplace giving campaign data to enable rollover gifts.
How: Go to the Donations tab within the specific campaign you want to import data to. This ensures the donation history is associated with the correct campaign.
Contacts
Import contact profiles to attach demographic data, group affiliations, and tag-based segmentation to individual records. Importing contacts can also be used for team members.
Use case: Upload lists of contacts and categorize them into groups like Memberships, Board Members, or Regional Chapters for personalized communication and reporting.
How: Go to the Contacts tab in your dashboard and use the import tool.
Campaigns
Import campaigns that have donations, contact data, designations, pledge history and more.
Use case: Import past campaigns to enable Rollover Donations for workplace giving campaigns. Importing prior data enables the platform to give donors the option to opt into prior pledges.
How: Go to the Campaigns tab in your dashboard and use the import tool.
How to Import Data and Map to Tags
Whether you’re importing contacts or donations, the mapping process follows a similar flow:
1. Prepare Your CSV File
Make sure your CSV includes column headers (e.g., First Name, Email, Membership Group).
Pro tip: Add a column for each group or tag you want to assign (e.g., “Membership Level” or “Region”).
2. Navigate to the Import Section
For donations: Go to the Donations tab of the specific campaign.
For contacts: Go to the Contacts tab in your dashboard.
Click Import and upload your CSV file.
3. Select matching field
You will have the option to match the data you are importing to unique fields:
ID (Goodworld's internal contact ID)
External ID (an external ID, usually generated from another system)
Email
This matching field will allow for the data to merge accurately with existing data in the platform.
For example, if you are adding a "Membership" tag to contacts who are already in the system, duplicates will not be imported twice. Only the "Membership" tag will update for existing contacts.
Each type of import will have different match field options.
4. Map your fields
After uploading your file, you’ll see a field mapping interface. For each column:
Use the dropdown to map standard fields (e.g., First Name, Email).
For custom groups like Membership, click the three dots next to the column name and choose Map to Group.
For example – Membership” is mapped to a pre-existing group called Memberships. This assigns each contact a tag under that group (e.g., “Gold,” “Silver,” “Bronze”).
5. Create New Tag Groups (if needed)
If your data includes tags not yet in your system:
Click Create New Group during the mapping step.
Enter a name (e.g., “Board Members” or “Volunteer Chapters”).
Continue mapping your column to this new group.
6. Preview & Confirm
You’ll be shown a preview of the data with each contact and their corresponding tags or groups.
Click Looks Good to confirm and start the import.
Membership Tagging Use Case
Tagging members with their Membership status is a great example of how imports and mapping can support segmentation:
Use a CSV file with columns like Name, Email, and Membership Level.
During import, map the Membership Level column to the Memberships tag group.
Once imported, all contacts will be tagged with their corresponding Membership level (e.g., Basic, Premium).
This is useful for:
Managing exclusive communications
Filtering for reporting and engagement
Segmenting donors for targeted asks or invitations
Why Use Groups & Tags?
Goodworld’s tagging infrastructure allows you to categorize contacts for better engagement. Use cases include:
Affinity Groups (e.g., Environmental Supporters, Youth Volunteers)
Donor Levels
Event Attendance
Regional Affiliations
Best Practices for Imports & Mapping
Be Descriptive: Use clear tag names to avoid confusion.
Create Before You Import: Set up groups and tags in advance to speed up the mapping process.
Review Your File: Make sure your columns match the structure you want in Goodworld.
Use for Rollovers: Assign imported donations to a past campaign to support automated rollover gifts.
Goodworld’s data imports and mapping tools give you control over your donor and contact data. Whether you’re importing historical giving or assigning tags to contacts like “Memberships,” this functionality ensures your engagement strategy is powered by organized, insightful data.
If you have questions about Importing Data & Data Mapping, schedule a support call with our success team.