Adding a contact

Getting to the form

Either:

• Click the + next to Contacts in the left navigation, or
• Go to the contacts list and click the + beside the heading.

karani.co/contacts/create

Only Last Name and Status are required. Everything else can wait.

A * next to a field name means it’s required. There are only two.

Basic Information

Field	Notes
Title	Mr., Mrs., Reverend, Dr. — however they’d want to be addressed formally.
First name
Middle name	Rarely used. Fine to skip.
Last Name *	Required, unless the contact is anonymous. For an organisation, put the whole organisation name here — see below.
Suffix	Jr., PhD, III.
Is this contact an Organization?	Switch to Yes for a church, business, or foundation.
Organization ID	The unique ID your organisation’s donation system uses for this donor.
Is This Contact Anonymous?	For donors who’ve asked not to be named. Anonymous contacts don’t need a last name.

Organisations: put the full name in Last Name

Karani displays organisation contacts by last name. If you split “First Baptist Church” across First name and Last name, the list will show only “Church”. Put the entire name — “First Baptist Church” — in Last Name and leave First name empty.

Organization ID is the one to not skip

This is the field that makes future gift imports match the right person instead of guessing by name. If your organisation doesn’t issue IDs, use the contact’s email address. See Bringing your data in.

Contact Information

Address, Address 2, City, State, and Postal/Zip Code are the primary address — the one used for mailing labels and mail merge and for placing the contact on the contact map.

Below those, three [add] links let a contact have more than one of each:

• Other Addresses — a work address, a winter address.
• Phones — mobile, home, work.
• Emails — personal and work.

See Emails, phones & addresses for how multiple entries behave.

International contacts

A Country field appears once you turn on international fields under Settings → Preferences.

Other Information

Field	Notes
Greeting	How you’d open a letter — “Jim and Barb”, or “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”. Used by mail merge.
Notes	Free text. Anything that doesn’t fit a field. Turn on the rich text editor in Preferences for formatting.
Status *	Contact, Donor, Prospect, Archive, or Lapsed Donor. See Contact statuses.
Birthday	Feeds the Upcoming Special Days report and optional birthday reminder emails.

The right-hand column

Contact Photo

Upload a photo. Genuinely useful — it makes the contact list scannable and helps you recognise someone before a meeting.

Add pledge (optional)

A shortcut so you can record a first pledge while you’re already here rather than adding it separately afterwards.

Field	Notes
Amount	The amount per pledged gift, not the annual total.
Frequency	One-Time, Monthly, Quarterly, Twice a Year, Annually, or Custom.
Pledge Start Date	If you don’t know when they started, use the Beginning of Fiscal Year button.
Pledge End Date	Leave empty for an open-ended pledge.

Start dates matter for your totals

If a pledge’s start date is after the beginning of the current fiscal year, Karani only counts it from that date forward — so your yearly pledge totals will read low. When in doubt, click Beginning of Fiscal Year. There’s more on this in Adding a pledge.

Tags

Type to add tags. You don’t have to create them first — typing a new one creates it.

Family Members

Click + to add a spouse, child, or parent. See Spouses & family members.

Saving

• Save New Contact — saves and takes you to the new contact’s profile.
• Save and Add Another — saves and gives you a blank form again. Use this when you’re entering a stack of business cards.