Little Green Light Help
Welcome to LGL!
Here are some basic steps you can take to get started with LGL and make the most of your 30-day evaluation.
Basic customization
Set your fiscal year start, preferred date format, and other basic account settings. Also customize your menu options for constituents, gifts and other records.
Import sample/test data
An empty database is kind of lonely. You can get a feel for using LGL with some actual information by loading our sample data set. It just takes a couple minutes and you can easily remove it when you’re ready to import/add your own data.
Add some team members
Invite others to log in and help you, so you can make the most of your 30-day evaluation.
Get help, training, and support
Our “help” page lists all the different ways that you can get support and training, and is a great place to start if you have questions. The Knowledge Base has a wealth of information about how to use LGL as well.
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Support Documentation for Little Green Light
This section collects all the Little Green Light Help articles on one page. (Last updated on April 16, 2020.)
Knowledge Base
LGL Training Course
Comprehensive overview of LGL’s core functionalities.
- LGL Training Course Guide and Table of Contents
- What kind of information can I store about a constituent?
- Managing households in LGL
- Customizing the Constituent, Gift, and other menus
- Flex Importer FAQs
- Organizing your campaigns, funds, events, and appeals
- How do I log in?
- Team member/user roles and permissions
- Getting around
- Your Dashboard
- Tracking memberships
- Tracking school-specific data in LGL
- Customizing addressee and salutation fields
- How do I add constituents?
- Constituent name information
- Constituent categories
- Basic searching and filtering
- Building lists of constituents
- Constituent giving summary
- Using the Flex Importer
- Contact reports
- Tasks
- Notes
- Gift entry
- Pledge entry
- Bulk gift entry
- Gift entry: Soft credits and other related gifts
- Generate and send acknowledgments for memorial/honorary gifts
- Sending pledge reminders
- Send email acknowledgments
- Campaigns and funds
- Appeals
- Adding segments to your appeal
- Managing events in LGL: Step by step
- Create a mailing
- Microsoft Word letters
- Simple LGL letters
- Letter templates
- Label Templates
- Envelope Templates
- Complex constituent searches
- Saved searches
- Reports: Build, customize, and schedule reports
Year-End Tax Receipts/Statements
Instructions for sending year-end tax receipts/statements by mail or email.
- Generate and send year-end tax statements/receipts
- Reports: Use smart fields to enhance constituent report building and mailings
- Add receipt numbers to acknowledgments (for Canadian customers)
- Add receipt numbers to a year-end mailing (for Canadian customers)
- Watch a webinar on how to create year-end tax statements/receipts
- Send email tax receipts/statements
Getting Started
Logging in, customizing look and feel, changing passwords, adding team members.
- Learning how to use Little Green Light
- Getting started – Prospective customers
- How do I log in?
- Troubleshooting login issues
- How do I change my email address or password?
- Getting around
- Getting started – 6 to do’s for new customers
- Customize the look and feel of LGL
- Team member/user roles and permissions
- How do I add additional team members or remove a team member?
- How do I change my time zone?
- Selecting your preferred currency
- Organizing your campaigns, funds, events, and appeals
- Customizing the Constituent, Gift, and other menus
- What kind of information can I store about a constituent?
- Best Practices: Using Groups in LGL
- Enabling automatic soft-crediting by relationship types
- Working with constituent records
- How can I contact LGL when I need help?
- Customizing the order and display of constituent menu items
- Managing the communications you receive from Little Green Light
- Best practices: Managing your team member profiles
- How Little Green Light subscriptions are billed
- Support Holidays
Data Migration, Organization & Cleanup
Guidance for prepping and migrating data into LGL, and for cleaning up your LGL data.
- Preparing for migration
- Migrating to LGL from your current system
- Organizing your campaigns, funds, events, and appeals
- Making bulk changes to your data
- Working with leading zeros in Northeast zip codes
- Compare your import file to a sample version
- Using the Flex Importer
- Data Dictionary
- Migrating from QuickBooks to LGL
- Migrating data from a LifeLine account to LGL
- Import student and parent data
- Formatting your phone number data
Importing
Guidance for importing your data into LGL using the Flex Importer.
- Using the Flex Importer
- Data Dictionary
- Compare your import file to a sample version
- Flex Importer FAQs
- Upload your import file
- Control duplicates on import
- Control how constituent name and gift data are updated/created in an import
- General field mapping
- Mapping constituent fields
- Mapping contact info: Phone numbers
- Mapping contact info: Email addresses
- Mapping contact info: Websites
- Mapping constituent category fields
- Mapping gift fields
- Uploading related gifts
- Mapping pledges
- Mapping goals
- Mapping events
- What event registration options are compatible with LGL?
- Mapping appeals
- Mapping membership fields
- Mapping constituent relationship fields
- Uploading relationships with the Flex Importer
- Mapping education fields
- Mapping class-year fields
- Mapping contact report fields
- Mapping volunteer data
- Mapping notes and tasks
- Import student and parent data
- Mapping tribute gifts
- Set a rule or default in an import
- (Importing) What are “Constituent” numbers and “Record Type” numbers?
- Mapping contact info: Mailing addresses
- Create or update an import template
Home / Dashboard
Using the Little Green Light Dashboard and Calendar.
Constituents
Households, relationships, merging, deceased constituents, duplicates, memberships.
- Constituents overview
- What kind of information can I store about a constituent?
- How do I add constituents?
- How do I delete a constituent?
- Delete constituents from your account
- Can I import constituents?
- Constituent name information
- Constituent giving summary
- Constituent activity
- Constituent categories
- Merging constituent records
- Unmerging a merged constituent record
- Managing households in LGL
- Creating relationships between constituents
- Creating relationships between employees and organizations
- Managing data for deceased constituents
- Update categories for many constituents at once
- Tracking memberships
- Tracking school-specific data in LGL
- Options for recording anonymous donations
- Checking for and managing duplicates
- Customizing addressee and salutation fields
- Best Practices: Using Groups in LGL
- Best Practices: Using Groups in conjunction with class-year affiliation fields
- Enabling automatic soft-crediting by relationship types
- Constituent PDF profiles
- Managing birthdays and birthday reminders
- Working with constituent records
- Customizing the order and display of constituent menu items
- Working with stewards
- Enable automatic address deduplication
- Using notes to track additional information
- Tracking emergency contact information
- Set your default gift type filters and customize Giving Status definitions
- NCOA service through LGL
- Can I make a constituent inactive?
- Updating a constituent record when there’s been a divorce or separation
Constituent Searches & Lists
Basic searching and filtering, complex searches, saved searches, building lists.
- Simple name searches
- Basic searching and filtering
- Complex constituent searches
- Saved searches
- Building lists of constituents
- Managing birthdays and birthday reminders
- Search for constituents without email
- Creating lists of related constituents
- When to use a constituent list versus a saved constituent search
- Can I make a constituent inactive?
Fundraising (Gifts & Pledges)
Gift and pledge entry, campaigns, funds, appeals, events, in memory, soft credits.
- Fundraising overview
- Gift entry
- Gift entry: Soft credits and other related gifts
- Bulk gift entry
- Pledge entry
- Entering gifts of securities (stocks) into LGL
- Review and update gift, pledge, and goal details
- Can I import gift information?
- Fundraising searching, browsing, and reporting
- Using fundraising goals for major gifts or grants
- Campaigns and funds
- Appeals
- Quick searching and reporting with Fundraising views
- Matching gifts: Understanding and working with them in LGL
- Generate a lump sum report to record donations into QuickBooks
- Soft credits: Gifts given by a spouse/partner, Donor Advised Funds, Family Foundations
- Bulk gift editing
- Using gift batches
- Working with stewards
- Working with split gifts
- Recording and managing tribute gifts
- Understanding tributes
- Mapping tribute gifts
- Collect tributes using an LGL form
- Custom gift fields
- Easily connect gifts to pledges or goals
- QuickBooks integration: Sync gifts from LGL to your QB Online account
Acknowledgments
Setting up and sending email and print acknowledgments.
- Acknowledging gifts in LGL
- Create an acknowledgment letter template
- Generate and send acknowledgment letters
- Create an email acknowledgment template
- Send email acknowledgments
- Assign an acknowledgment template to gifts you want to acknowledge
- Final step: Marking your acknowledgment mailing “Sent”
- Generate and send acknowledgments for memorial/honorary gifts
- Generate and send year-end tax statements/receipts
- Add receipt numbers to acknowledgments (for Canadian customers)
- Add receipt numbers to a year-end mailing (for Canadian customers)
- Acknowledgment preferences and settings
- What is an LGL Merge Field and how it is used?
- Why is there an “Unacknowledged Gifts” alert on my dashboard?
- Frequently asked questions about gift acknowledgments
- Working with split gifts
- Recording and managing tribute gifts
Tributes
How to record, acknowledge, and import them, and accept them via an LGL form.
- Understanding tributes
- Recording and managing tribute gifts
- Mapping tribute gifts
- Collect tributes using an LGL form
- Generate and send acknowledgments for memorial/honorary gifts
- Gift entry: Soft credits and other related gifts
- How do I create a report of donors who made honorary gifts to one person?
- Uploading related gifts
- Using LGL Forms to collect tribute gifts (In honor/In memory)
Appeals & Events
Managing events and appeals, working with auction software, exporting event data.
- Optional event setting: Tracking additional guests
- Appeals
- Customize your event
- Export event information
- Managing events in LGL: Step by step
- Working with auction software (e.g., Greater Giving) and LGL
- Customize your appeal
- Adding segments to your appeal
- Recurring events or classes – how to record attendance
- What event registration options are compatible with LGL?
- Importing additional guests into an event
- Forms: Mapping from LGL Forms to events with additional guests
- When to use the “Additional guests” setting in your event
- Team member/user roles and permissions
- Events
Searching
Simple or complex searches, searching or browsing, saved searches.
- Simple name searches
- Basic searching and filtering
- Complex constituent searches
- Saved searches
- Fundraising searching, browsing, and reporting
- Quick searching and reporting with Fundraising views
- Searching by date
- Search for constituents without email
- Perform a radius search
- Searching and reporting on consecutive years of giving
Reports
Building and customizing, scheduling, constituent vs. fundraising, Smart Fields.
- Creating a report
- Reports: Build, customize, and schedule reports
- Generating custom reports from the Constituents or Fundraising tab
- Common reports and how to create them
- Reports: Use smart fields to enhance constituent report building and mailings
- Using reports to analyze year-over-year giving and retention
- Soft credits: Gifts given by a spouse/partner, Donor Advised Funds, Family Foundations
- Constituent PDF profiles
- Reporting on giving from related constituents
- Reporting on relationships
- Create a comprehensive export of your database
- Searching and reporting on consecutive years of giving
Mailings
Creating mail merge letters, envelopes and labels for reminders, solicitations, etc.
- Mailings overview
- Create a mailing
- Review and personalize mailings
- Simple LGL letters
- Microsoft Word letters
- Letter templates
- Envelope Templates
- Label Templates
- Generate and send year-end tax statements/receipts
- Sending pledge reminders
- Creating a mailing list to send to a mail house
- Adding images to mailings and emails
- Microsoft Word guidelines for LGL mailings
- What is an LGL Merge Field and how it is used?
- How can I print mailing labels?
Emailing
Learn all about sending emails directly from LGL.
- Setting up your account to send LGL Direct Email
- Tips on sending email from LGL
- Sending email to one constituent
- Sending email to several constituents at once
- Email templates
- Send email acknowledgments
- Adding images to mailings and emails
- Reviewing the status of emails sent via LGL
- (Advanced) Pass values into a form via email
- Does Little Green Light make it possible to send mass emails to donors?
- Why can’t my team member send an LGL email?
- Search for constituents without email
- Sending email directly from Little Green Light
- CAN-SPAM Act Compliance
- Add or update your email signature
- Limits on sending email directly from Little Green Light
- Send email tax receipts/statements
LGL Forms
Building, enabling payments, look and feel, integrating data flow to LGL, publishing.
- Frequently asked questions about LGL Forms
- Build a new form
- Enable your LGL Forms account to accept Stripe payments
- Introduction to LGL Forms
- Integrate your LGL Forms data to flow into LGL
- Customize the look and feel of your forms with Themes
- Enable your LGL Forms account to accept PayPal payments
- LGL Forms field types and descriptions
- Create a payment form
- Define your form’s confirmation options
- Forms: Create and manage recurring gifts
- Example form: Event registration
- Set up your LGL Forms account
- Publish a form
- Forms: Mapping events – Soup to nuts
- Enable your LGL Forms account to accept ProPay payments
- (Advanced) Pass values into a form via email
- Using LGL Forms to collect tribute gifts (In honor/In memory)
- Forms: General mapping
- Manage your LGL Forms account
- Forms: Manage the processing date for a recurring payment
- Creating a conditional confirmation page or confirmation email for your LGL form
- Manage your LGL Forms Submission Queue
- Forms: Mapping from LGL Forms to events with additional guests
- Forms: Viewing and managing unpaid transactions
- Preview a form
- Subscribe your form users to MailChimp or Constant Contact
- Donation processing for nonprofits outside the U.S.
- (Advanced) Forms: Bring data in through your form, without mapping a field, by setting a default or rule
- Creating a #GivingTuesday form
- Offer discounted prices in a form
- Forms: Set limits on the number of items you will sell
- How do I issue a refund for a donation made through an LGL form?
- Prevent bot/spam form submissions
- Forms: Keep track of expiring credit cards
- Forms: Build and map a basic membership form
- Forms: Mapping to multiple constituent records and creating relationships
- (Advanced) Pass values from a form confirmation page into another form
- When to use the “Additional guests” setting in your event
- Place numerical and time limits on your form submissions
- Collect tributes using an LGL form
- Reduce fraudulent use of your online donation forms
- Offer your online donors the best of both worlds by using Stripe and PayPal
- Mapping a file upload through your LGL form
- Can I collect offline payments using an online LGL donation form?
- Forms: Map each value in a dropdown list so that online donations are correctly coded in LGL
- Build an LGL form that collects in-kind gifts
- Map your LGL form to create a contact report
- Resync incorrect or incomplete LGL forms submission records to your account
- How can I change the time zone in my LGL forms account?
Integrations
MailChimp, Constant Contact, Mandrill, PayPal, Wufoo, Dropbox.
- Mailchimp Integration
- Constant Contact integration
- Add constituents to Constant Contact lists
- Tips for managing your LGL/Constant Contact integration
- Using a mailing to track emails sent via MailChimp or Constant Contact
- QuickBooks integration: Sync gifts from LGL to your QB Online account
- Working with QuickBooks and LGL
- Generate a lump sum report to record donations into QuickBooks
- Create contact reports by sending email to your LGL dropbox
- Clean your addresses by using Address Verification in LGL
- Wufoo: HTML forms integration
- Get notifications about donations you are receiving through PayPal
- DonorSearch Integration
- Reviewing the status of emails sent via LGL
- Setting up your account to send LGL Direct Email
- Tips on sending email from LGL
- Sending email to one constituent
- Sending email to several constituents at once
- Integrating with MarketSmart’s Fundraising Report Card to visualize giving patterns
- WealthEngine integration
- Improved integration with Constant Contact
- Notes and tips for managing your LGL/Mailchimp integration
- Use custom integrations to send data via webhooks to LGL
- Subscribe your form users to MailChimp or Constant Contact
- CAN-SPAM Act Compliance
- For land trusts: Sync LGL with your Landscape account
- Updating your QuickBooks Online login credentials
- Using the Zapier integration (in beta testing)
Activity
Tasks, contact reports, volunteering, notes, and documents.
- Activity overview
- Contact reports
- Tasks
- Notes
- Documents
- Volunteering
- Recurring tasks
- Using notes to track additional information
- Tracking emergency contact information
- Map your LGL form to create a contact report
International use of LGL (outside U.S.)
How to use LGL if you’re outside the U.S.
- Donation processing for nonprofits outside the U.S.
- Add receipt numbers to acknowledgments (for Canadian customers)
- Selecting your preferred currency
- Add receipt numbers to a year-end mailing (for Canadian customers)
Billing & Payment
Subscribing and unsubscribing, setting up billing and contact information.
- Subscribe to LGL
- Billing and account contact information
- How do I cancel my subscription to LGL?
- How Little Green Light subscriptions are billed
Security
- CAN-SPAM Act Compliance
- Prevent bot/spam form submissions
- Reduce fraudulent use of your online donation forms
- Enable and manage 2-step verification
- Enable alerts for logins to your LGL account from new geographical locations
Affiliates & Refer a Friend
Details about LGL’s Affiliates and Refer a Friend programs.
LGL Best Practices
Articles offering best practices for using LGL.
- Organizing your campaigns, funds, events, and appeals
- Managing households in LGL
- Matching gifts: Understanding and working with them in LGL
- Best Practices: Using Groups in LGL
- Managing data for deceased constituents
- Best practices: Managing your team member profiles
- Best Practices: Using Groups in conjunction with class-year affiliation fields
- Reduce fraudulent use of your online donation forms
- Best practices: Managing planned giving data in LGL
Quick Answers
Speedy answers to some frequently asked LGL support questions.
- Why can’t I log in to my LGL account?
- Can I set up a team member so she can only see specific constituents?
- What’s the difference between a “nested/sub query” and an “additional query”?
- How do I search for all constituents with mailing addresses?
- How can I find all donors with no phone number, mailing address, or email?
- My report doesn’t contain data I expect to see. Why doesn’t my report match my search criteria?
- How do I create a report of donors who made honorary gifts to one person?
- How do I build a report showing attendee count for an event?
- How do I revise a letter?
- How do I produce a letter for each donor in the previous year that lists their tax-deductible contributions for that year?
- Does Little Green Light make it possible to send mass emails to donors?
- How can I send emails to multiple members of a household?
- We just sent out an email blast using MailChimp and a number of people unsubscribed from our list (via MailChimp). How long will it take for their unsubscribe to appear in LGL?
- Why can’t my team member send an LGL email?
- How do I edit a volunteer time entry?
- How can I test a payment form without actually making a donation?
- Why aren’t my PayPal donations coming into LGL?
- How can I contact LGL when I need help?
- Do you have a mobile app?
- How do I update my letter or acknowledgment template?
- How can I search for everyone who signed up for my newsletter?
- Can I add a default acknowledgment template to an appeal or an appeal segment?
LGL Video Library
Getting Started with LGL
- LGL Introductory Tour (8:21)
- Adding a new constituent category (4:49)
- Using LGL’s sample/test data (1:28)
- Adding gift tiers for reporting (1:42)
- Creating an acknowledgment template (1:40)
- Getting started with LGL Forms (2:13)
- Getting Started with LGL (29:01)
- Managing Addressee and Salutation fields (1:56)
- Introductory Tour of Little Green Light
- How to create a custom report in LGL (2:34)
- How to create a mailing (1:28)
- How to generate a report using templates (1:23)
- Managing your account settings (1:56)
- Getting Started with LGL webinar
- LGL user interface guide (00:56)
- Adding new team members (1:00)
Training Videos
- Basic Training: Constituents 101
- Basic Training: Gift Management 101
- Basic Training: Reporting 101
- Creating end-of-year tax letters in LGL
- Getting Started with LGL webinar
- Introduction to LGL Forms webinar
- Introductory Tour of Little Green Light
- LGL Training: Event Management 101
- LGL Training: Gift entry and acknowledgments
- LGL Training: Mailings, Emails & Appeals
- LGL Training: Online donations & event registrations
- LGL Training: Searching & reporting
- LGL Training: Using LGL Appeals to manage solicitations
- LGL User Training: Advanced Use of the Flex Importer
- LGL User Training: Importing Fundamentals
- Little Green Light and LANDSCAPE — an ideal combo for land trusts
- Sync data from LGL to QuickBooks Online – Webinar
- Using the #GivingTuesday template in LGL Forms
Constituent Management
- Adding a new constituent category (4:49)
- List Manager: Adding and saving constituents to a list (1:52)
- Tracking volunteer activity (1:16)
- Basic Training: Constituents 101
- Managing Addressee and Salutation fields (1:56)
- Tracking memberships (1:06)
- Updating constituent categories in bulk (1:59)
- Managing constituents (1:24)
Gifts & Acknowledgments
- Tracking gifts and pledges (2:00)
- Tracking grants and major gifts in LGL (1:29)
- Adding gift tiers for reporting (1:42)
- Creating an acknowledgment template (1:40)
- LGL Training: Gift entry and acknowledgments
- Generating year-end tax receipts (8:42)
- Basic Training: Gift Management 101
- Adding related gifts (1:06)
- Bulk Editing of Gifts (1:56)
- Calculating year-over-year fundraising results (05:26)
- Tribute Gifts Report (02:12)
- Add tribute gifts (02:58)
- Adding a tribute (01:34)
Forms & Donation Processing
- Getting started with LGL Forms (2:13)
- LGL Training: Online donations & event registrations
- Introduction to LGL Forms webinar
- Build a volunteer hours form (03:06)
Mailings & Emails
- Pushing a constituent list to Mailchimp (1:25)
- Creating a Mailing in 4 simple steps
- Generating year-end tax receipts (8:42)
- LGL Training: Mailings, Emails & Appeals
- Managing Addressee and Salutation fields (1:56)
- How to create a mailing (1:28)
- Adding images to mailings and emails (1:21)
- Sending personalized mailings (1:16)
- Creating a mailing list to send to a mail house (3:44)
- Adding contact reports from emails (3:45)
- Creating a single envelope for a constituent (1:08)
Appeals & Events
- Managing events (1:41)
- LGL Training: Mailings, Emails & Appeals
- Using appeals to manage solicitations (1:44)
- LGL Training: Event Management 101
Searching & Reporting
- Importing and exporting data (2:05)
- Adding gift tiers for reporting (1:42)
- How to create a custom report in LGL (2:34)
- How to generate a report using templates (1:23)
- LGL Training: Searching & reporting
- Calculating year-over-year fundraising results (05:26)
- Searching your data (2:25)
- Learn about custom reporting capabilities in LGL (2:08)
- Performing radius searches (00:55)
- Saving a new report template (00:51)
Importing Data
- Importing and exporting data (2:05)
- Using LGL’s sample/test data (1:28)
- Flex Importer overview (11:32)
- Uploading relationships using the Flex Importer (2:39)
- LGL User Training: Importing Fundamentals
- LGL User Training: Advanced Use of the Flex Importer
Integrated Web Services
- Pushing a constituent list to Mailchimp (1:25)
- Software integrated with LGL (1:23)
- Sync data from LGL to QuickBooks Online – Webinar
- Performing radius searches (00:55)
- LGL–Wufoo integration (2:44)
- Little Green Light and LANDSCAPE — an ideal combo for land trusts