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What is a Cadence?

Rachel Specht
Updated

Cadences let you map out a series of donor touchpoints—like emails, calls, or cards—so you can plan, schedule, and send thoughtful outreach over time. Automate multi-step outreach journeys with ease.

Cadences in Momentum let you pre-schedule a series of donor touchpoints—emails, calls, letters, and more—spaced out over days, weeks, or months. Whether you're managing annual giving campaigns, event follow-up, or stewardship tracks, cadences help ensure nothing falls through the cracks and every donor gets timely, strategic communication.

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Creating a Cadence
  3. Applying a Cadence
  4. Stopping a Cadence
  5. Best Practices
  6. TLDR

Overview

A Cadence is a set of pre-planned actions assigned to a group of constituents, laid out like a mini communication journey. Each step is scheduled for a specific time and preloaded with your chosen template—either AI-generated or mail merge.

You can think of a cadence as your “donor playbook”: once it’s set, Momentum will tee up the messages at the right time, so you and your team can stay focused on relationship-building rather than task-tracking. Cadences are structured, but you still have control to:

  • Modify message content before sending
  • Skip or delay steps for specific donors
  • Swap templates mid-series if priorities change This ensures your communication stays relevant without losing the benefits of automation.

Cadences use your existing AI or Mail Merge templates. That means your team can create consistent journeys while still allowing for individual flair. Teams can share cadences or duplicate and customize them. Great for collaboration across annual giving, major gifts, stewardship, and alumni engagement

As each action is completed in a cadence is logged automatically to the donor’s record. Any updates from your CRM (like new Gifts or Contact information) will appear in real time. This helps you stay fully synced without extra work.

Creating a Cadence

  1. Navigate to the Workspace tab and then Cadences. This is your central hub for creating and managing Cadences.
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  1. Click + New Cadence at the bottom right.
  2. Give your Cadence a clear name (e.g. Giving Tuesday 2026 Follow-up or New Donor Welcome Series).
  3. Add Outreach Steps
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  • For each step, define:
    • Name of the Outreach Step
    • Timing (e.g. 3 days after previous step)
    • Template to use
  1. Save Changes. Once complete, your Cadence will be available for use on any list or constituent group.

Applying a Cadence

You can apply a Cadence in several ways:

  • From a List: 
    1. Select your list 
    2. click New Action
    3. Choose Cadence and select the Cadence to start for your list.
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  • From a donor's record: 
    1. Open the donor’s profile
    2. Click New Action icon
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  1. Assign a Cadence from the Actions menu.
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  • From Segments:
    1. Inside the Segment, select checkbox(es) near the donors to create a bulk action.

    2. Click Create in the pop-up menu for Create Outreach.

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    3. On the New Action form, select Cadence and choose your Cadence.

Once assigned, each step in the cadence will appear in your Inbox queue on the scheduled date—ready to tailor and send.

Stopping a Cadence

Momentum allows you to stop a Cadence mid-stream, giving you more control when a donor’s situation changes. Donor relationships are dynamic, so stopping a cadence helps ensure your outreach stays timely, personal, and appropriate. A cadence that made sense at the start may no longer be appropriate. Common reasons to stop a cadence include:

  • The donor makes a gift
  • The donor responds and the relationship changes
  • A meeting or conversation changes the strategy
  • The cadence is no longer relevant

To stop a cadence:

  1. Open the donor’s record and click the Plan tab.
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  1. Find the next scheduled step in the current Cadence.
  2. Click the Stop icon.
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  1. Confirm to stop the cadence. All remaining steps in the cadence will be removed.
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When a cadence is stopped all future steps are canceled, and no additional tasks from that cadence will appear in your Inbox.Any past completed steps will remain in your history (Outbox.) This allows you to pivot your strategy without losing record of prior engagement. For example, you start a cultivation cadence that includes an introduction email, follow-up call, meeting request, and proposal. If the donor makes a gift after the follow-up call you can stop the cadence and skip the remaining steps. Then, you may shift to stewardship or next-phase engagement.

Best Practices

  1. Stop Cadences when context changes: If a donor takes action or responds, review whether the remaining steps still make sense.
  2. Avoid over-automation: Cadences are helpful, but relationships should always guide outreach. Use the stop function to keep communication relevant.
  3. Pair with Engagement Plans: If your strategy changes, consider creating or updating an Engagement Plan instead of continuing an outdated Cadence.

TL;DR

Use this feature to: Automate multi-step communication plans across any donor segment 

You can: Schedule emails, calls, and follow-ups in advance—each with your preferred template 

Great for: Campaigns, onboarding flows, stewardship journeys, donor society tracks 

Works with: Lists, segments, templates, and your CRM

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