Why am I seeing fewer donors in Switchboard than in ActBlue?
If you're finding that your Switchboard search results show fewer donors than what appears in ActBlue, this discrepancy is likely due to how the Donations filter works in Switchboard. How big the gap is depends on whether you're using the legacy Donations filter or the new enhanced Donations filter (Beta).
Legacy Donations filter
The legacy Donation filter in Switchboard only captures donors who provided their phone number when making a donation through ActBlue (or other donation sources you have connected). If a donor doesn't enter their phone number during the donation process, they won't appear in your legacy filter results, even if they are in your ActBlue database.
Capturing more donors with the legacy filter
To capture a more complete list of your donors, use both the ActBlue filter and the engagement filter together. This combination will help you capture:
Donors who provided their phone number directly to ActBlue
Donors who made donations through Switchboard-tracked links, even if they didn't provide their phone number to ActBlue
This approach should significantly increase your donor count and provide a more accurate representation of your donor base.
Enhanced Donations filter (Beta)
The enhanced filter closes most of this gap on its own without combining multiple filters. In a single step it captures donors who gave through directly through ActBlue, donors who gave in response to a Switchboard message, and donors whose donation didn't include a phone number but who you already have a phone number for in Switchboard.
If you've been combining the ActBlue and engagement filters to work around this gap, the enhanced filter replaces that setup. See Two Ways to Target Your Donors to learn more.
Verifying Your Results
Keep in mind that a phone list can only include donors you have a phone number for in your Switchboard universe, so even the enhanced filter won't match ActBlue exactly since ActBlue also counts donors you may only have an email address for. To better understand the gap between ActBlue and Switchboard numbers, you can download the donor report directly from ActBlue to see how many donors actually have phone numbers on file. This will help you determine if the remaining discrepancy is due to missing phone numbers or other factors. If you have donors with phone numbers in ActBlue that are now pulling through to Switchboard, it may be an issue with the ActBlue webhook configuration.