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 ActBlue filter works in Switchboard.

Understanding the ActBlue Filter

The ActBlue filter in Switchboard only captures donors who provided their phone number when making a donation through ActBlue. If a donor doesn't enter their phone number during the donation process, they won't appear in your ActBlue filter results, even if they are in your ActBlue database.

Solution: Use Both ActBlue and Engagement Filters

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.

Verifying Your Results

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.