Work Smarter: Using Humanitru Notifications to Keep Your Team in the Loop

Nonprofit teams wear a lot of hats. Between managing donors, tracking gifts, coordinating members, and stewarding relationships, it's easy for important moments to slip through the cracks. Humanitru's Notifications feature is designed to make sure they don't.

Notifications are automated alerts triggered by Actions in Alpine — and with the right setup, they act like a behind-the-scenes assistant, surfacing the right information to the right person at exactly the right time.

WHAT ARE NOTIFICATIONS?

Notifications are customizable alerts that fire when specific Actions are recorded in Alpine. You choose the trigger, the recipient, the delivery method (email or SMS), and how often alerts are sent — either immediately when an Action is created, or as a recurring digest on a schedule you set.

Notifications can be filtered by:

• Action type (donations, calls, check-ins, membership payments, and more)
• Campaign (useful for tracking activity tied to a specific initiative)
• Tag (great for segmenting by donor segment, board membership, or priority level)

Once configured, Notifications run automatically — no manual report-pulling required.

FIVE WAYS YOUR TEAM CAN PUT NOTIFICATIONS TO WORK

1. Keep Leadership in the Loop on Major Gifts

Best for: Executive Directors, CDOs

Configure a real-time email notification that fires whenever a donation over $1,000 is recorded. Your Executive Director gets an instant heads-up — no end-of-day check-in required — and can send a personal thank-you or flag the gift for stewardship follow-up.

How to set it up: Create a Notification triggered by a Donation Action with a gift amount threshold, set delivery to email, and select "Action Created" as the frequency.

2. Give Your Membership Coordinator a Weekly Payments Digest

Best for: Membership Coordinators, Operations Staff

Rather than logging into Alpine every day to check on membership renewals, your Membership Coordinator can receive a weekly digest of all Membership Payment Actions recorded that week. It's a clean, consolidated summary that makes it easy to spot gaps, follow up on lapsed members, or confirm renewals are processing as expected.

How to set it up: Create a Notification triggered by a Membership Payment Action type, set delivery to email, and choose "Recurring Digest" with a weekly cadence.

3. Prepare Major Gift Officers for Their Day

Best for: Major Gift Officers, Frontline Fundraisers

Help your major gift officers show up prepared by sending them a daily digest of all Call Actions scheduled or logged for the day. Instead of digging through their constituent list each morning, they get a ready-made call sheet delivered to their inbox — supporting better conversations and more consistent outreach. They can even use that list to add their notes directly to their Call Actions and mark them verified to show that the Call was made.

How to set it up: Create a Notification triggered by a Call Action type, set delivery to email, and choose "Recurring Digest" with a daily cadence.

4. Alert Your Development Director When a Board Member Checks In

Best for: Development Directors, Executive Directors

When a board member checks in to an event, your Development Director can receive an immediate SMS alert. This creates a real-time opportunity for a personal greeting or a quick cultivation conversation.

How to set it up: Create a Notification triggered by a Check-In Action, filtered by a Board Member Tag, set delivery to SMS, and select "Action Created" as the frequency.

5. Recognize and Engage High-Impact Volunteers

Best for: Volunteer Coordinators

When a volunteer logs more than four hours in a single day, that's a meaningful contribution worth acknowledging. Set up an email notification to alert your Volunteer Coordinator any time a Volunteer Action of that length is recorded — so they can follow up with a thank-you, flag the individual for a volunteer recognition program, or identify emerging volunteer leaders before they slip off the radar.

How to set it up: Create a Notification triggered by a Volunteer Action with a duration threshold of more than four hours, set delivery to email, and select "Action Created" as the frequency.

TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST OUT OF NOTIFICATIONS

Match frequency to urgency. Use real-time "Action Created" alerts for time-sensitive moments (major gifts, VIP check-ins) and recurring digests for routine tracking (weekly membership payments, daily call prep).

Use Tags to target the right people. Tags that indicate an assigned fundraiser or ones that indicate someone is a "Board Member" or "Lapsed Member" help you create highly specific Notifications.

Deliver by channel. The best notification is the one that is read so check with your team to see what channel best meets their needs. Often, email works well for digests and detailed summaries and SMS is best for immediate, need-to-know alerts.

Review and clean up. Check your Notifications tab periodically and delete alerts that are no longer relevant — especially after a campaign wraps up.

Ready to set up your first Notification? Visit the Understanding Notifications and Alert Types article in the Humanitru Help Center to get started: https://kbhelp.humanitru.com/knowledge/understanding-notifications-and-alert-types