Merging & anonymising donors
Combine duplicate donor records or remove a donor's personal details for privacy, while keeping the accounting ledger intact.
Over time your donor database picks up a little untidiness: the same person gives twice and ends up with two records, or someone asks you to remove their personal details. WAQAF gives you two clean-up tools for this — merge, which folds one duplicate donor into another, and anonymise, which strips a donor's personal details for a privacy request. Both are designed so that your financial records never change: every donation stays on the ledger exactly as it was.
Who can do this. You need a donor role that grants delete — typically the Donor Manager (or an organisation owner/admin). Other donor roles, such as Donor Editor or Donor Viewer, and finance roles such as Finance Manager or CEO, can view donors but cannot merge or anonymise them. If you don't see the Manage button on a donor's page, your role doesn't allow this; see Members & roles.
Where to find it. Donors → open a donor → Manage.
Both actions live in the same place: open the donor you want to clean up, then use the Manage menu at the top of their profile.
Merging two donor records
Merging takes two donor records — the duplicate you no longer want, and the surviving donor you want to keep — and folds everything from the duplicate into the survivor. You'd do this when you discover the same person has two records, for example because they once gave as a guest and later created a portal account, or a small spelling difference in their name created a second entry.
When you merge, everything money-related and historical moves to the surviving donor:
- All donations are re-pointed to the survivor, so their lifetime total, gift count, and history all add up correctly.
- Any recurring pledges move across.
- Any saved payment cards move across.
- Their notes and activity timeline are preserved on the survivor.
The duplicate record is then deleted, and a note is added to the survivor's activity timeline recording that a merge happened.
The survivor only gains details it was missing. If the surviving donor has no phone number and the duplicate has one, the survivor inherits that phone number; but where the survivor already has a value, it's kept and the duplicate's is dropped. Email addresses are never copied across, because each donor's email must be unique.
Open the duplicate donor
Go to Donors, find the record you want to get rid of, and open it. This is the donor that will be removed by the merge, so make sure you're on the duplicate — not the one you want to keep.
Choose Merge from the Manage menu
At the top right of the profile, click Manage, then choose Merge into another donor. A dialog opens explaining what will happen.
Pick the surviving donor
In the Choose the surviving donor picker, search for and select the donor you want to keep. This is where all the donations, pledges, cards, and notes will end up.
Confirm the merge
Click Merge. WAQAF moves everything across, deletes the duplicate, and takes you to the surviving donor's profile — where you'll now see the combined giving history.
Merging cannot be undone. The duplicate record is permanently removed once you confirm. Double-check you've opened the right donor and chosen the right survivor before clicking Merge. (No financial data is ever lost — donations simply belong to the surviving donor afterwards — but the two records can't be split apart again.)
When a merge is blocked
To keep your data safe, WAQAF refuses to merge automatically in a few situations and shows you a message instead of guessing:
- You picked the same donor. Choose a different surviving donor.
- Both donors have a portal login. Each is a separate signed-in account, so merging them needs a person to decide which login to keep — sort that out first.
- Both donors have saved payment cards. The cards can't be combined automatically; remove the cards you don't need first.
- The surviving donor already has saved cards under a different payment customer. The duplicate's cards can't be moved onto a conflicting payment profile.
In each of these cases, nothing is changed — you'll see a short explanation and can fix the conflict before trying again.
Anonymising a donor (privacy requests)
Anonymising is for privacy and data-protection requests — for example, when a donor asks you to remove their personal details from your records. It removes the donor's identity but keeps their giving on the books, so your accounts still balance.
When you anonymise a donor:
- Their name, email address, and phone number are removed.
- The record is flagged as anonymous.
- Their donations and totals are kept for accounting integrity — the money stays on the ledger; only the personal details are gone.
Open the donor
Go to Donors and open the profile of the person who has asked to be anonymised.
Choose Anonymise from the Manage menu
Click Manage at the top right, then choose Anonymise. A confirmation dialog explains that the name, email, and phone will be removed and the donations kept.
Confirm
Click Anonymise. The personal details are scrubbed immediately and the donor is marked anonymous.
Anonymising cannot be undone. Once you confirm, the name, email, and phone are gone for good — WAQAF does not keep a hidden copy. Only anonymise a donor when you're sure that's what's being asked for.
When anonymising is blocked
So that you don't accidentally cut a donor off from things they still rely on, WAQAF refuses to anonymise in these cases:
- The donor has a portal login. A signed-in donor account needs separate handling before its details can be removed.
- The donor has saved payment cards. Remove the saved cards first.
- The donor has an active recurring pledge. Stop the recurring giving first, then anonymise.
If any of these apply, you'll see a message telling you which one — handle it first, then come back and anonymise.
Both merging and anonymising leave a trail on the donor's activity timeline (a Merged or Anonymised entry), so your team can always see that a clean-up happened and who carried it out.