GivebearSegments
Save a filter rule as a segment, use the built-in ones, and turn any segment into an email or text audience.
A segment is a saved filter rule over your contacts. It updates itself: when a donor's giving changes, they move in or out of the segment without anyone editing a list. In the dashboard, segments are the Smart lists half of the Lists page under People CRM, and each one also opens as a filtered view of Contacts.
Use a segment when the audience should come from data (recurring givers, lapsed donors, people missing an email). For labels a person applies by hand, use a tag instead; see people and outreach.
Segments need the donor "view" permission, the same as the rest of the CRM. Sending to a segment uses the email or text campaign permissions. See settings, roles, and billing.
The built-in segments
Every organization starts with seven segments Givebear maintains for you. They carry a Built-in badge and cannot be edited or deleted.
| Segment | Who is in it |
|---|---|
| Major donors | Lifetime giving of $1,000 or more |
| Recurring | Has an active recurring gift |
| Lapsed | Gave at least once, no gift in 180 or more days, and no active recurring gift |
| New contacts | Added to the CRM in the last 30 days |
| Never given | In your CRM with no gifts yet |
| Missing email | No email address on file |
| Missing phone | No phone number on file |
Three of these (Recurring, Lapsed, New) also appear as one-tap preset chips at the top of the Contacts page, so the chip and the segment always match.
The filters you can combine
A segment is any combination of these dimensions. Each one is optional; leave it out to ignore it.
| Dimension | Group | What you set |
|---|---|---|
| Gift count | Giving | A minimum and/or maximum number of gifts (0 means never given) |
| Lifetime value | Giving | A minimum and/or maximum total given, in dollars |
| Last gift | Giving | How many days ago the most recent gift was, as a minimum and/or maximum |
| Subscription status | Giving | Recurring donors only, or one-time donors only |
| Date added | Engagement | Added within the last N days |
| Membership | Engagement | Has an active membership, or does not |
| Missing email | Missing info | No email on file |
| Missing phone | Missing info | No phone on file |
All filters you set must match for a contact to be included.
Create a segment
You can start from the Lists page, from a filtered contact list, or by describing the cohort in plain English.
Open People CRM, then Lists, and select New smart list.
Give the segment a name (up to 64 characters) and an optional one-line description.
Pick a color: Cocoa, Honey, Forest, Sky, or Red. The color marks the segment's card and its chip on filtered lists.
Build the filters, then select Create segment.
On the Contacts page, tap a preset chip or open More filters and add the dimensions you want.
Adjust the values until the count above the table looks right.
Select Save these filters as a smart list. The button stays disabled until at least one filter is applied.
Name it, add a description and color, and select Save segment.
The contact list now shows a chip reading Saved: your segment name, and the URL carries the segment so you can bookmark it.
On the Lists page, select Create with AI.
Describe the cohort, for example "donors who gave $500+ and haven't given in 6 months". The dialog offers a few examples you can tap.
Review the draft: Givebear proposes a name, description, color, and the exact filter chips it translated your words into.
Edit anything you like, then save.
The AI only picks values for the dimensions above. It cannot invent a filter Givebear does not have, so check the chips rather than the sentence you typed.
Work with a segment
Each segment card on the Lists page shows the current contact count. Select View contacts to open the Contacts page filtered to that segment, or Empty for now when nobody matches yet.
Hover over a card for its actions:
- Mail icon: creates a new email campaign draft addressed to this segment and opens the editor. See send an email campaign.
- Pencil: edit the name, description, color, or filters. Built-in segments do not offer this.
- Trash: delete the segment after a confirmation that shows how many contacts it matches. Deleting a segment never deletes contacts.
While a segment is open on the Contacts page, changing a filter switches the chip to Editing: name with an Update button that saves the new rule back to the segment. Select the X on the chip to detach and keep browsing with the ad-hoc filters.
Use a segment as an audience
Segments are one of the audience sources in the campaign pickers:
- Email campaigns: add a segment in the Audience panel of the editor, alone or combined with tags, funds, event registrants, or individual contacts. Givebear removes duplicate emails across sources.
- Text campaigns: the same picker, restricted to people with a recorded text opt-in. See text messaging.
Because a segment is a rule, the audience is computed when you send, not when you save the draft. A "Lapsed" campaign scheduled for next week reaches whoever is lapsed next week.