How is ActBlue donation data used in audience creation and message customization?

Last updated: October 17, 2025

When making a donation through ActBlue, donors may provide both their email and phone number or just an email address.

If you are creating a phone list using ActBlue donation data, Switchboard will include all phones that are associated with an ActBlue donation. Donations made with email only will not appear in phone audiences, even if the email and phone number are linked in Switchboard.

If you personalize your text message copy using something like {{sb_total_donations}}, Switchboard will only count the donations that have the phone number associated with them in ActBlue's data.

For example:

  1. Donor makes first donation with email (example@email.com) and phone number (555-0123)

  2. Same donor makes second donation with only email (example@email.com)

  3. An email-based search will show both donations

  4. A phone-based search will only show the first donation

Note: Improvements to phone and email linkages are currently in development as part of future contact management updates.

While Switchboard uses phone and email links (which get set when you import or upload a list) for calculations in the fundraising dashboard, these links are not currently used in the audience builder. So, even if we know a phone is associated with an email, and that email is tied to an ActBlue donation, the phone will not currently be included in a phone list of donors.