Team & roles
Roles and permissions
The five roles, the fourteen permissions behind them, and how per-person adjustments work.
3 min read · Updated October 31, 2026
Each team member has one role per organization. A role is a bundle of permissions; Owners and Admins can adjust individual permissions per person on top.
The roles in one line each
- Owner: full access, including billing and deleting the organization.
- Admin: manage donors, gifts, forms, team and settings.
- Finance: view everything; manage gifts, refunds, receipts, statements and deposits.
- Staff: manage donors, record gifts and send thank-yous. No settings or money movement.
- Read only: view only.
The matrix
| Permission | Owner | Admin | Finance | Staff | Read only |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View reports | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Add and edit donors | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Record and edit gifts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Send thank-you emails and letters | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Issue refunds | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Generate year-end statements | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Edit email and letter templates | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Download and schedule report exports | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Download donor lists | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Connect QuickBooks, map accounts, record bank deposits | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| View the audit log | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Edit donation forms and website embeds | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Invite and remove teammates | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Change organization settings and payments (Stripe) | ✓ | ✓ |
Everyone, including Read only, can open donor and gift pages; the permissions above are about changing things and exporting.
Per-person adjustments
On a member's page under Settings → Team, tick or untick any single permission. Rules:
- Adjustments are stored as differences from the role and are cleared when the role changes.
- You can't grant a permission you don't hold yourself.
- Owners always have everything and can't be reduced; change the role instead.
- Every change is written to the audit log.
Typical adjustments: let a Staff volunteer download donor lists for a mailing; stop a particular Admin from issuing refunds; give the bookkeeper (Finance) add and edit donors so they can fix addresses.
Owners
An organization needs at least one Owner. Only Owners can invite or demote other Owners, and the last Owner can't be removed or demoted.
Multiple organizations
A person can belong to several organizations with a different role in each. See Working with multiple organizations.
Donors are not team members
Donors have their own portal login and never see the staff side, even if the same email is also on your team.