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DonorDirect Integration Nuances

Understanding the specific behaviors and current limitations of the DonorDirect integration will help you plan your setup and know what to expect. This page covers why the integration is built the way it is, and what’s still in progress.
This integration is under active development. Several behaviors described below as “not yet supported” or “in progress” are known, tracked gaps — not oversights. This page will be kept current as those are resolved.

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Why This Integration Works Differently From WeGive’s Other CRM Integrations

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The Scale Problem

StudioEnterprise’s standard API is built to look up one account at a time — it doesn’t offer bulk, date-filtered queries. For an organization with a large constituent base, a full synchronization through the standard API alone would require millions of individual API calls, with no reliable way to detect what changed since the last sync.

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WeGive’s Solution: Custom Read-Only Data Endpoints

To make sync practical at scale, WeGive builds and hosts a small set of custom, read-only data endpoints directly against your StudioEnterprise environment (using StudioEnterprise’s own API extensibility feature). These endpoints:
  • Return account, gift, recurring-plan, fund, and campaign data in efficient, paged batches instead of one record at a time
  • Include a reliable, timestamp-based change feed, so ongoing syncs only process records that actually changed
  • Expose relationship data (which gift belongs to which recurring plan, which campaign a gift is attributed to) that the standard API doesn’t surface directly
Push (WeGive → StudioEnterprise) works differently. Because these custom endpoints are read-only, any data WeGive sends back to StudioEnterprise — new donors, gifts, or recurring plans — goes through StudioEnterprise’s standard write API instead.
This design means initial setup involves WeGive’s implementation team working directly with your StudioEnterprise environment to build these endpoints, rather than a fully self-serve API-key connection. See Setup Requirements for what that process looks like.

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Synchronization Behaviors

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Full Backfill, Then Incremental

The first sync performs a complete historical import. After that, sync switches to incremental mode — pulling only records that changed since the last successful sync, using StudioEnterprise’s own change-tracking data rather than rescanning your full account/gift history each cycle.

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Gifts Are Treated as Immutable Once Synced

Once a gift has been pushed to StudioEnterprise and recorded there, WeGive does not attempt to update that record on a later sync — gift records are treated as settled and unchanging. If a gift is refunded in WeGive after being pushed, the refund is sent as its own follow-up sync rather than modifying the original record.

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Pushed Gifts Are Recorded as Already-Processed

When WeGive pushes a transaction to StudioEnterprise, it’s recorded as an already-completed gift — StudioEnterprise is not asked to process a new charge. Actual payment processing happens within WeGive; StudioEnterprise receives the record for reporting and donor-history purposes.

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Known Current Limitations

StudioEnterprise’s own gift-status field is coarse, and the precise definition of “completed” for import purposes (versus other in-progress or reversed states) is still being confirmed as part of this integration’s rollout. This page will be updated once that mapping is finalized.
A single gift paid across multiple payment methods (for example, part credit card, part check) is not yet represented on import — the primary payment method is used. Support for this is planned for a future phase.
StudioEnterprise’s change-tracking data ties a deletion event to the record’s internal ID — but if that record no longer exists in StudioEnterprise by the time WeGive processes the deletion event, WeGive currently cannot resolve which record it referred to, and the deletion may not propagate. A more complete fix (tracking the internal ID at initial pull time so it’s still available later) is planned.
Splitting a donor’s email addresses and phone numbers out to StudioEnterprise’s own typed contact-method records (rather than WeGive’s primary email/phone slots), and do-not-contact preference sync, are planned for a later phase of this integration.
A single gift split across more than one fund designation is not yet represented in the DonorDirect sync.
StudioEnterprise supports sub-accounts under a Project; the current integration syncs at the Project level only, not the sub-account level.
Campaign/Source Code attribution is synced using the current campaign hierarchy. Year-specific historical changes to that hierarchy over time are not yet reflected.

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Data Format Notes

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Currency and Amounts

WeGive stores monetary amounts in cents; StudioEnterprise uses decimal dollar amounts. Conversion is automatic in both directions.

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Phone Numbers

StudioEnterprise expects a digits-only phone number, up to 10 digits. WeGive automatically strips formatting and a leading US country code (1) before sending.

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Addresses

StudioEnterprise requires only a country code to accept an address record. If a donor has no address on file in WeGive, a default country is sent rather than omitting the address entirely.

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Best Practices

Coordinate Setup Early

Because setup involves a joint access/configuration process, start coordination with WeGive’s implementation team well before your target go-live date.

Review Contact Type Codes

Confirm your StudioEnterprise contact-type codes (email/phone/address) before configuration, so contact information maps correctly from the start.

Plan for Default Fund/Campaign

Decide on a default Project and Source Code for gifts that don’t map to a specific designation, before enabling push.

Start With Pull Only

Consider enabling pull first and validating imported data before turning on any push direction, since push toggles default off individually per data type.

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Next Steps

Data Mapping Reference

Detailed field mapping documentation

Get Support

Contact our team for integration assistance
For additional questions about specific behaviors, contact our support team at [email protected].