How to use Pipelines

Pipelines are used to track the progress of a relationship and donor "moves management" or other sales-funnel use cases. 

How can I use Pipelines in my MonkeyPod?

Pipelines allow you to track the progress of a relationship through a series of sequential steps toward some goal. 

Many nonprofits use pipelines for "moves management" in a fundraising context. For example, they might track a major donor prospect through steps like:

  1. Identification (identifying the prospect)
  2. Qualification (validating the prospect's capacity to give)
  3. Cultivation (contacting the prospect and building a relationship)
  4. Solicitation (asking for a donation or gift)
  5. Stewardship (managing the relationship on an ongoing basis)

But there's no reason to limit pipelines to fundraising! Pipelines can be used to model any multi-step "funnel" that applies to your organization's work. The flexibility of using them for any multi-step process means everyone with access to your MonkeyPod can stay up to date on project progress with a quick check of the Pipeline.


Creating a Pipeline

To create a pipeline, expand the RELATIONSHIPS menu on the main navigation menu. Then, you can find and select "Pipelines" under the Contacts section.

On the Pipelines page, you can customize Pipeline Name and Steps, as well as determine whether the Pipeline should be private (visible to you only).

After naming the Pipeline and defining its steps, you can easily track progress on the steps. 

Adding Relationships to a Pipeline

How to add a Single Relationship

After creating a pipeline, you can click the pipeline name to view it in detail.

Next, you will see a relationships table with columns for each step you created. If a step is marked as completed, the next step will automatically be set to "Working" so that you are able to track progress easily. 

In the first row of the table, there is an option to search your relationships for someone to add to the pipeline. If you make a mistake, simply select "Never mind" and they will not be added to the Pipeline.

How to Bulk Add a Batch of Relationships

If you run a search of your relationships, a link will appear at the top of the results to "Bulk add all matching contacts to a pipeline" which you can select to get further instructions on adding everyone who matches the search criteria you specified. 


Tracking Progress

Status Updates

Once someone has been added to your pipeline, you'll want to track their progress through all of the steps you have identified. Each step will always have one of the following statuses:

  • Working - the step is in progress and being actively worked on
  • Completed - the step has been successfully completed
  • Skipped - the step was not relevant or had to be skipped, but the relationship should remain in the pipeline, nonetheless
  • Not Started - the default status before you've started to work on a step

Updating the status of a step is as simple as selecting the status from the dropdown options. When you mark any step completed, the next step will automatically update to Working.

Comments

You can also add comments to each relationship's record for a particular step, which can be useful for recording important context or notes. Comments are not required for all of the steps but it is especially helpful if you are removing someone from a Pipeline or skipping a step in the Pipeline for a particular reason.


Changing Relationship Status

Ending Early

Not everything works out the way you hoped! Sometimes, a relationship needs to be removed from a pipeline before they've completed all of the steps. To end someone's pipeline participation early, click the action dropdown next to their name on the pipeline and click the link to end early. Enter a brief explanation and submit.

By ending someone's pipeline progress early, you will archive their progress data and prevent them from being accidentally added again in the future.

Removing a Relationship

If you added someone to a pipeline by mistake, you can remove them altogether. Click the ... action dropdown next to their name on the pipeline and click the link to delete them from the pipeline. When you delete from Pipeline, that relationship can be added again in the future.

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