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A list is a reusable set of members and contacts. Lists answer questions like “who joined in the last 60 days”, “which members have an active donation”, and “who has not paid this year”, and they double as the audience when you send a newsletter. Use a list when you need to:
  • Send a newsletter to part of your organisation rather than all of it
  • Keep a group up to date automatically as people join, pay, or lapse
  • Pull a recurring report without rebuilding the same filter each time

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Two kinds of list

Automated lists are defined by criteria and re-evaluate themselves. Someone who becomes eligible tomorrow is in the list tomorrow, with no action from you. Manual lists contain exactly the people you add, and change only when you change them.
The type is fixed when the list is created and cannot be changed afterwards. If you build a manual list and later want it to maintain itself, you have to create a new automated list. Decide which you need before you save.

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Creating a list

1

Open Lists

Administration → Lists, then Create list.
2

Describe who should be in it

You can type the audience in plain language, for example “members in Cluj who joined this year and have not paid”. Orgo suggests criteria from that description, which you can then review and adjust. The suggestion is a starting point, not the saved definition, so always check the criteria it produced before saving.
3

Choose automated or manual

Automated for anything you want kept current. Manual for a fixed set, such as a working group or an invitation list. Remember this cannot be changed later.
4

Set the scope

Decide whether the list covers members only, contacts only, or both. Contacts are people in your database who are not members, such as newsletter subscribers and past attendees.
5

Set the membership status

Active, inactive, or all. Active is the default, so a list will silently exclude lapsed members unless you widen this.
6

Add criteria

Combine as many conditions as you need. See below for what you can filter on.

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What you can filter on

Text and number criteria support equals, not equals, greater than, less than, and contains, so age and date-style questions can be expressed as ranges rather than exact matches.

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Using a list as a newsletter audience

When composing a newsletter, pick the list as the audience instead of selecting recipients by hand. With an automated list, the audience is resolved when the newsletter is sent, so a list that grew since you drafted it reaches the people who qualify at send time.

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When a list is not enough

List criteria cover the questions organisations ask most often, but they are not a general query language. If you need something they cannot express, such as a report combining several years of payment history, contact support and describe the question you are trying to answer. Custom queries are set up for your organisation and then appear alongside your lists.