Managing Donor Deletion Requests

When a supporter wants their account removed, they can submit a deletion request from their donor portal. This article walks through how those requests appear in your dashboard, what happens when you complete one, and what to expect afterward.

What is a deletion request?

A donor deletion request is a record submitted by a supporter from their donor portal (Profile Settings → Delete Account) asking your organization to remove their account. WeGive does not delete the account automatically — every request lands in your dashboard for an admin to review and complete manually. This gives your team control over compliance, retention, and any CRM cleanup that needs to happen alongside it.

Only the supporter can submit a request. Admins cannot create a deletion request on behalf of a donor from the dashboard.

Where to find deletion requests

In your dashboard, navigate to Data → Donor Deletion Requests. From there you can:

• See every request submitted to your organization

• Filter by status (Pending or Completed), date submitted, and donor or household

• Search by supporter name or email

• Click into any individual request to see the supporter’s name, email, when the request was submitted, and the current status

By default the list is sorted with the newest requests at the top.

Statuses

Each request has one of two statuses:

Pending — The supporter has submitted the request but no admin has actioned it yet. Pending requests stay in this state indefinitely; WeGive does not auto-complete them or send reminders, so your team should review the queue on whatever cadence fits your compliance policy.

Completed — An admin has completed the deletion. The supporter’s account has been archived and the cascade actions described below have run.

Completing a deletion request

You can complete requests one at a time from the detail view, or in bulk from the list view by selecting multiple requests and clicking Complete Deletion Request. You can add an internal completion note (visible only to your team — it is not sent to the supporter).

Completion is idempotent: if a request is already completed, re-running the action does nothing. There is no built-in “undo” for a completed deletion request, so confirm before you complete.

What happens when you complete a request

Completing a request triggers a deletion cascade on the supporter record. Specifically:

• The supporter record is archived (soft-deleted) and disabled. They will appear under Archived Supporters.

• All active recurring donations are cancelled.

• The supporter is unsubscribed and removed from every Communication List they belonged to.

• Their donor portal logins are deleted, so they can no longer sign in.

• The deletion request status flips to Completed and records who completed it.

What is preserved

WeGive intentionally retains data needed for financial reporting and audit history. The following are not removed by completing a deletion request:

• Historical transactions and donation records

• Tax documents and receipts

• Payment method records on past transactions

• Custom field values, notes, event registrations, and fundraiser data

• Audit logs and change history

What WeGive does not do automatically

A few important things to know:

• No email is sent to the supporter. Completing a request does not trigger a confirmation email. If your organization wants to acknowledge the request, send a message manually.

• CRM records are not touched. Deletion requests are WeGive-only. If you sync to a CRM (Salesforce, Neon, DonorPerfect, etc.), the corresponding record there is not deleted or anonymized — your team needs to handle that separately according to your CRM’s process.

• Personally identifiable information is not wiped from the WeGive record. The supporter’s name and email remain on the archived record so historical transactions stay attributable. If your organization has a policy requiring full anonymization, reach out to WeGive Support.

A typical workflow

A practical workflow for handling deletion requests looks like this:

1. Review the Data → Donor Deletion Requests queue on a regular cadence (weekly is common).

2. For each pending request, confirm the supporter’s identity matches the request and check whether anything needs to happen in your CRM or other connected systems first.

3. Complete the request in WeGive and add an internal completion note describing what was done and when.

4. Handle CRM-side deletion or anonymization separately per your organization’s policy.

5. If the supporter expects a confirmation, send one manually from your normal communication channel.

FAQ

Can a supporter undo their own request before it’s completed?
The request stays Pending until an admin completes it. If a supporter changes their mind, they should contact your organization directly so an admin can leave the request unactioned, or so your team can take note. There is no donor-portal “cancel” action.

Can I restore a supporter after a deletion request is completed?
There is no one-click restore. The supporter record is soft-deleted, so the data still exists, but recovering it (un-archiving the donor, restoring logins, re-subscribing to lists, restoring recurring plans) requires manual work. Contact WeGive Support if you need help.

Will historical reports still include this supporter?
Yes. Past transactions, soft credits, and reporting data remain intact so your historical financial reports are unaffected.

Does this satisfy GDPR / CCPA right-to-be-forgotten requests?
Completing a deletion request archives the supporter and stops future communications, but because some PII and historical data is retained for audit purposes, your organization should evaluate whether additional steps (CRM deletion, full anonymization) are needed to meet your specific regulatory obligations.

If you run into a request that doesn’t behave as expected, or need help with a special case (full anonymization, restoring a deleted supporter, bulk processing a backlog), reach out to WeGive Support.