Opportunity Status

To help detail your efforts to secure a major gift, you can use statuses — such as Initial contact, Pending, and Accepted — to track where an opportunity is in your solicitation process. You can quickly view the status of an opportunity under Status or in the summary on its record, under Opportunities on its constituent's record, or in the Opportunity status column on a list of opportunities.

Under Status on an opportunity's record, you can use the timeline to quickly view and scroll through a history of its statuses. To view details about a status, select it on the timeline. To view a list of the opportunity's previous statuses, select Show status history. To help track changes to an opportunity, you can view who added or updated a status when you review its history.

Note: For statuses added or updated in the database view, the history shows Blackbaud processing instead of a name.

If your organization sets up its opportunity statuses in the web view, you can also view how long an opportunity's had its current status, as well as when it's overdue or closed.

When your organization sets up its opportunity statuses, it configures how long — in days — an opportunity should have each before it's late or overdue. To keep your solicitations running, we recommend you focus on overdue opportunities and keep statuses up-to-date.

Note: Closed or inactive opportunities — or those with statuses set in the database view — don't track how long they have a status.

When your organization sets up its opportunity statuses, it chooses which indicate an end to your solicitation process, such as when an opportunity's goal is secured or deemed no longer viable. Unlike inactive opportunities, closed opportunities remain active and available in lists.

Tip: To hide a closed opportunity from lists and analysis but keep it for historical reference, mark its record as inactive. For more information, see Opportunity Records.

If you aren't sure where an opportunity is in your solicitation process, you can leave the status blank when you create the opportunity. If you assign a status and need to remove it, edit the opportunity and select No status.

Note: The No status option is only available when you edit an opportunity.

Tip: To accurately track all the prospect's giving opportunities and the effectiveness of your prospect management, use opportunity statuses in parallel with prospect statuses. For information, see Prospect Status.

  1. Select the opportunity.

    • From a list of opportunities, select Change opportunity status from the opportunity's menu .

    • On the opportunity's record, select Change opportunity status at the top of the record, or Change status under Status.

    • On the constituent's record, under Opportunities, select Change opportunity status from the opportunity's menu .

  2. In the Status field, select where the opportunity is in your solicitation process.

  3. Choose when the opportunity entered its current status.

  4. In the Comment field, enter any additional notes or information about the change.

  5. Select Save.

Tip: Don’t see this option? Contact your system admin for rights to make this type of change.

Tip: In the database view, you can manage an opportunity's current status on the General tab of its proposal record. However, we recommend you manage an opportunity's status changes in the web view instead. For details why, see Opportunity Status: Web or Database View?

You can edit the details of a previous status — such as to update how long the opportunity had it — on the opportunity's record. To change the status, select Show status history under Status, select Edit from its menu, adjust its information as necessary, and then select Save.

Tip: Don’t see this option? Contact your system admin for rights to make this type of change.

To remove a previous status, such as if you inadvertently move an opportunity to the next stage, you can delete it from the opportunity's record. To delete a status, select Show status history under Status, select Delete from its menu, and then select Delete.

Tip: Don’t see this option? Contact your system admin for rights to make this type of change.

Admins only! To alert fundraisers when an opportunity has a status for too long, admins can set how long it can have each status or whether to consider it closed.

  1. Under Opportunities on a constituent's record, select Settings .

  2. Configure each status of your solicitation process.

    • For statuses that indicate the end of an opportunity's lifecycle, such as Complete or Deferred, select Means "Closed".

    • Under Days until warning, enter how many days an opportunity can have each remaining status before it’s overdue.

  3. Select Save.

Tip: You can set up and manage the available opportunity statuses from Proposal Status in Tables. For more information, see Tables.

Tip: For a breakdown of your assigned opportunities by status, refer to Opportunities under Overview in Work Center. For more information, see Work Center Overview.