A donation comes through your Give Lively page at 9:47 on a quiet Tuesday night in summer. Starting today, you can know as soon as its disbursement begins.

Donation notifications are now live on Give Lively. Once you turn them on, the team members you choose receive an email each time a donation to your nonprofit succeeds. Donation tracking no longer depends on exports, portal check-ins or forwarded emails between your bookkeeper and your development lead.

This is a much-desired feature that nonprofits have been asking for on our feedback board. Here is what you told us, why it matters for your donors and how to set it up in under a minute.

What nonprofits told us

Nonprofits shared how they manage donations and what would help them most. Each idea shaped how donation notifications work.

Stay on top of every gift

Many nonprofits have experienced getting an email for every gift; they wanted that tool on Give Lively. Now news of each donation arrives in your inbox with its details, so your team easily stays current.

Thank donors sooner

Nonprofit teams told us they want to thank donors as early as possible. Several organizations experimented with Stripe alerts, but they arrive only after funds transfer, which can be several days after a donor gives. Give Lively notifications go out as soon as a donation is marked successful. Bank/ACH and donor-advised fund (DAF) gifts take longer to process, so those notifications are sent once a gift clears.

Give every gift equal attention

Donation tracking gets plenty of focus during campaign season. Nonprofits want equal care for donors who give in quieter months too. Notifications mean a summer gift can get the same timely thank-you as a December one.

Reach the right person on your team

In many small nonprofits, one person manages finances while another builds donor relationships. You asked to choose who gets notified, and you can. Any email address can receive notifications once it's added and confirmed as a user in your Nonprofit Admin Portal, including a shared inbox like info@ (keep in mind that all users gain full admin access).

Honor tributes without delay

When a donor opts to give in honor or memory of someone, your team likely wants to move quickly to notify a family or recognize an honoree. Each notification includes the dedicatee's name, so you know right away when to act.

Why speed matters to your donors

The case for prompt donation alerts is anchored in one takeaway: how fast you say thank you influences whether a donor gives again.

Donor retention is one of the nonprofit sector's most intractable problems. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project's Q4 2025 report, overall donor retention was 43.3%, but first-time donor retention was just 18.9%. Put another way, more than four out of five new donors never give a second time.

Expeditious acknowledgment is one of the most reliable ways to change that. Fundraising researcher Penelope Burk's donor-centered fundraising work set the widely used standard of a thank-you within 48 hours. In her controlled test, new donors who received a board member's thank-you call within two days gave 39% more in the next appeal. Two years later, 70% of those donors were still giving, compared with less than 20% of donors who weren't called.

As we wrote in the human side of nonprofit growth, acquiring a new donor costs 5 to 10 times more than keeping an existing one. Donation notifications put that 48-hour window within reach, and with it, one of the most cost-effective ways to steward donors.

How to turn on donation notifications

If your team has been working out how to track donations by hand, this replaces that routine. Setup takes less than a minute and you control exactly who receives alerts.

1. Log in to your Give Lively Nonprofit Admin Portal.
2. Go to Settings > Organization Settings.
3. In the Current Users list, click the edit icon next to the user you want to notify. To notify an email address that isn't listed yet, click Add New User and confirm it first.
4. In the Edit User drawer, turn on the Donation Notifications toggle.
5. Click Save Changes. The user now shows as Active in the Donation Notifications column. Repeat for anyone else who should receive emails.

That's it. Each selected user receives an email every time a donation to your nonprofit is marked successful. 

Some notes:

• Expect ACH and DAF notifications to arrive later than the gift date. 
• Notifications aren't enabled campaign by campaign; once turned on for a user, an email is received for every donation across all of your campaigns.
• You should keep your nonprofit’s user list up to date whenever your team changes, such as when a new development hire starts or a board treasurer rotates off.
• Donation notifications aren’t available for Event Ticketing purchases until they move to our new donation form. We'll share an update when ticketing notifications are ready. We also continue to track your requests for alerts when a recurring donation fails to process.
• They are also not presently available for donations received through Charity Navigator’s Giving Basket. 

What each notification includes

Every email works like a built-in donation tracker, giving you key details:

• Order date
• Donor name
• Order ID and gift frequency
• Campaign name
• Dedicatee name, if the gift is a tribute (the dedicatee's email address is left out for privacy)
• Total payment and total tax-deductible amount

Your donor still receives an automatic email acknowledgment of their payment. To remind you of this and help with next steps, the notification email links to everything you need to know about Give Lively donor receipts, including how to customize them, and to our guide on donor stewardship beyond the thank-you.

Make the most of every alert

A notification is only as useful as what your team does next. Use these practices to turn alerts into stronger donor relationships.

Notify the people who say thank you

Don't default to whoever manages your finances. Select the staff member, volunteer or board member responsible for donor acknowledgment so alerts reach the right inbox without having to be forwarded.

Build a 48-hour thank-you habit

The automated donor receipt from Give Lively confirms the gift. A personal note, email or call from your nonprofit within two days tells the donor you noticed. Set a simple rule: every notification gets a response within 48 hours.

Bring your board into stewardship

Burk's research shows board thank-you calls carry real weight. Share notifications for first-time or larger gifts with a board member ready to work the phone. Our upcoming webinar on activating your board for year-end giving covers how to get board members involved.

Built from your feedback

Donation notifications exist because we encourage nonprofit feedback and respond to it. Nonprofits told us how they track gifts, who on their team needs to know and what they wanted in each alert. Every vote and comment on our feedback board shaped this release.

Turn on donation notifications today in Settings > Organization Settings, and keep the ideas coming on the Give Lively product roadmap. Your next request could be our next launch.