Merge duplicate donors

Two records, one person. Walk the duplicate queue, confirm matches in a couple of clicks, and let Insta Merge keep NationBuilder in sync at the same time.

Duplicate donors happen naturally as data flows in from multiple sources: a Stripe donor and a NationBuilder import for the same person, a typo'd email that creates a new record, two campaigns capturing the same household. Together also creates a second record itself when a donation is made under a different entity from the one already on that email address. Either way, candidates are flagged automatically and you get a side-by-side view to decide.

Before you start

You need:

• The right role for the step you're doing. EDITOR (or above) can review the queue and confirm a pair into the Confirmed queue. Completing the merge itself — the irreversible step — requires ADMIN. VIEWERs are read-only: they see the queue but cannot confirm or merge.
• A few minutes to scan the queue. Merging is a judgement call per pair; don't batch through it on autopilot.

Steps

1. Go to Donors and click the Duplicates tab next to All Donors.

   Click to expand

   ×

2. The queue is grouped into four tabs:

   Tab	What's there
   Potential Duplicates	Together's automatic matches. Email match, normalised-phone match, name + address fuzzy match. Confirm or dismiss each pair.
   Investigate	Pairs an admin has flagged for follow-up. No automatic action; resolve when you have the info to decide.
   Confirmed	Pairs an admin has already accepted. Click through to inspect.
   Not Duplicates	Pairs an admin has dismissed as not-a-match. They won't re-surface in Potential.

3. Each card shows the two donors side by side with the differences highlighted: identity, contact details, address, YTD total, donation count. A confidence badge (e.g. "92% match") summarises how strong the signal is, with the matching reason beneath it ("Same phone number; very similar name").

4. Decide:

   • Confirm Match. Accepts the pair and moves it to the Confirmed queue, ready to merge — it does not merge on its own. An ADMIN then opens the pair from the Confirmed tab, checks the side-by-side review, chooses which record survives, and clicks Merge Donors to complete the (irreversible) merge. All donations and compliance flags carry across at that point.
   • Not Duplicate. Records that you've reviewed and dismissed this pair. They won't surface again unless one of them changes.
   • Investigate. Park the pair without deciding. Useful when you need to chase a colleague or check a CRM.

   Add a resolution note before any action via the Add note input on the card if you want to record why.

"Not a duplicate — they're related"

The commonest reason a flagged pair isn't a duplicate is that the two people are connected: a couple at one address, a parent and an adult child, a business owner and their company. You've just proved it, and both records are in front of you, so you can record it there and then.

After you click Not Duplicate, the queue offers Add relationship for the pair you just cleared. Pick each person's role and save — you never search for the second donor, because the queue already knows who they are.

The same button sits on every card in the Not Duplicates tab, so you can work back through pairs you cleared earlier.

Relationships are part of the Grow plan. On the Free plan the prompt and the button don't appear at all. Full detail on roles and types: Track relationships between donors.

Insta Merge for NationBuilder

If both donors in a pair are sourced from NationBuilder, the card shows an extra Insta Merge button. It's the single best feature for orgs syncing NB into Together.

What it does in one click:

1. Confirms the match in Together (same as Confirm Match).
2. Opens NationBuilder's merge dialog in a new tab, pre-loaded with the two NB person records.
3. Starts a 72-hour watch on the NB side. The next time the NB sync runs after you complete the merge in NB, Together notices the loser record no longer exists upstream and archives it automatically.

The result: Together and NationBuilder stay in lockstep without manual reconciliation. You finish the NB merge once, and both systems update.

Insta Merge requires both donors to have an upstream NB ID. For mixed pairs (e.g., Stripe donor + NB donor) or non-NB sources, only the standard Confirm Match / Not Duplicate / Investigate actions appear.

Merge two donors the matcher missed

Sometimes you know two records are the same person but they never appear in the queue — there was no shared email, the phone was stored differently, and there's no address to match on. You can start the merge yourself from either donor's page.

1. Open the donor you want to absorb (the record that will be archived).
2. In the left column, find the Merge into another donor card and click Choose a donor to merge into.
3. Search for the other record by name or email and pick it. This is the donor that will survive.
4. You land on the same side-by-side review screen as a queued match, with a Manual match badge instead of a confidence score. Check the two records, adjust which fields win if needed, then Merge Donors.

Manual merge is ADMIN-only — it's an irreversible action with no automatic signal behind it, so it sits with the same role that runs every merge. If you pick the wrong record before merging, use Not a match on the review screen (or on the Merge Activity card of the donor's page) to clear the pending match.

What changes when you confirm

After a Confirm (or Insta Merge):

• The aliased donor's record is absorbed into the primary. Donations stay attributed to the correct human; URLs to the old donor redirect to the new one.
• Caps and disclosure totals recalculate immediately. If the merge crossed a disclosure threshold, an alert fires.
• Email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses are unioned. The primary's main email wins; secondary emails are kept as alternates.

When to trust the matcher and when to investigate

Together's matcher is conservative by design — it surfaces candidates, you make the call. Some patterns are worth a second look:

• Same email, different name. Often a shared household mailbox. Confirm only if you're sure it's one person.
• Same name, no shared contact details. Common enough to be wrong (Jane Smiths exist). Use Investigate to chase the rest of the record.
• Sole trader giving personally + via a company. Two donor records by design, and often the pair Together created for you (see the note at the top). Mark as Not Duplicate so they stop surfacing.

What to do next

• Set up revenue codes so merged donors get the right jurisdiction classification: Set up revenue codes.
• Connect NationBuilder if you want to unlock Insta Merge: Connect NationBuilder.
• Resolve compliance alerts that may fire after a merge: Resolve a compliance alert.