# Contact Tags

Tags are labels you put on contacts so you can find, filter, and target the right donors.

**When To Use This**  
Use tags for anything your donation data doesn't already capture — roles like "Board Member", relationships like "Major Donor", or event participation like "Gala 2026".

**Before You Start**  
- Required permission: your role must allow managing contacts and organization settings.  
- Required setup: define tags in Settings before applying them.

**Manual Tagging**  
1. Open CharityStack and go to Settings, then the Tags section.  
2. Create the tags your organization needs. Keep names short and consistent.  
3. Apply tags from the Contacts page — open a contact or select several, then add the tag.  
4. Filter the Contacts table by tag to find everyone with a label.

**Smart Tagging**  
Smart Tagging uses the AI assistant to do the applying for you: describe who to tag in plain language, and the assistant selects and tags them. For example, "tag everyone who gave to the gala fund this year as Gala 2026." Start a Smart Tagging session from the Tags settings, review the contacts it selected, and confirm.

**Tags and Marketing**  
Tags carry into your marketing: [segments](../marketing/segments.md) can use tag conditions, so a dynamic segment like "everyone tagged Gala 2026" updates itself as you tag more contacts, and your [broadcasts](../marketing/broadcasts.md) reach exactly that group.

**Notes**  
Each tag shows how many contacts it's applied to, so you can spot unused or duplicate tags.

Removing a tag from the dictionary removes that label from your contacts — check where it's used first.