Contacts Overview
Your Contacts (found under CRM › Contacts) are the people in your world — donors, prospects, volunteers, and supporters. Think of each contact record as that person's home base in Harness: who they are, how they've engaged, and everything they've given, all in one place.
This article covers the new CRM & Email experience (your left navigation shows CRM and Email). If your left nav shows Contacts and no Email item, this feature isn't part of your account.
Finding & Adding Contacts
From CRM › Contacts you'll see your full contact list with a search bar at the top. Search by name or email to jump straight to someone. To add a contact by hand, select + New Contact and fill in their details.
Inside a Contact Record
Open any contact to see their record. Their core details — name, email, phone, address, company, and job title — sit at the top, and the rest is organized into three tabs:
Overview — an at-a-glance summary, including the contact's Giving Summary.
Activity — how this contact has engaged over time.
Donations — their full giving history, right on the record.
Contact Status
Each contact carries a status that Harness assigns automatically and shows in the Contact Summary Header at the top of the record. It's there to help you see at a glance where someone stands from a relationship and fundraising perspective — who's active, who's drifting, and who's come back. Here's what each one means:
Status | What it means |
New / No Giving History | This contact hasn't made a donation yet. |
Active | They've had engagement activity within the last 90 days. |
Cooling | No engagement activity for 90–180 days — they may be starting to drift. |
Inactive | No engagement activity for 180+ days. |
Lapsing | They've donated before, but not within the last 12 months. |
Re-engaged | They've made a donation after previously being Lapsing — welcome back! |
Because statuses update on their own from each contact's activity, you don't need to set or maintain them by hand — they're always current.
Reach Out From the Record
You can contact someone right from their record — no need to switch screens. Use the options on the record to send an email or send a text to that contact.
FAQs
Q: Can I add custom fields to a contact?
A: Not at this time — the record uses a standard set of fields for now.
Q: How is a contact's status set?
A: Automatically — Harness assigns it from each contact's engagement and giving activity (see Contact Status above), so you never set it by hand.
Q: What's the difference between Cooling, Inactive, and Lapsing?
A: Cooling and Inactive are about engagement timing (90–180 days, and 180+ days with no activity). Lapsing is about giving — a past donor who hasn't given in the last 12 months.
Q: Can I see which segments a contact is in from their record?
A: Not yet — manage segment membership from CRM › Segments for now.
Still need help? Chat with us via the bubble in the bottom left corner of your screen or email us at [email protected].