> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.firstrespondershub.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Promote a contact to a lead

> Turn a contact into a tracked lead for a specific program offering.

**Contacts** and **Leads** are related but distinct. A contact is an identity record; a lead is an active pipeline item tied to a specific program (and optionally a specific cohort). Promoting a contact to a lead is how you start actively tracking that person in the [Leads pipeline](/leads/index) — with status, notes, and activity.

## When to promote

Use **Promote to lead** when:

* An imported or manually-added contact tells you they're interested in a specific program
* You want to log calls, emails, or meetings with that contact against a specific program (notes live on the lead, not the contact)
* You want the contact to show up in pipeline metrics for that offering

You do **not** need to promote a contact when:

* They submitted the public **Request Program Information** form — a lead is created automatically.
* They started checkout and abandoned it — a cart-abandonment lead is created automatically.

Both of those flows also create the contact record, so the two stay linked.

## How to promote

1. Open a contact from the All Contacts table (click the row).
2. In the detail panel, click **Promote to lead**.
3. Pick a **program offering** (required) and optionally a **cohort**.
4. Submit.

Behind the scenes this creates a `program_info_request` with status `active`, pre-filled with the contact's name, email, and phone. The contact now appears in [Program Dashboard → Leads](https://firstrespondershub.com/program-dashboard/information-requests) and you can manage it there with the full lead tooling (status, notes, activity, waitlists, invitation email).

## Idempotency

If an active lead already exists for the same contact email and program, the action is a no-op — it returns the existing lead instead of creating a duplicate. You'll see a toast indicating the lead already exists and can jump directly to it.

## Permissions

Program owners and instructors can promote contacts to leads.

## What's preserved

* The contact's email status (active / unsubscribed / bounced) and tags are unchanged.
* The contact's original source is unchanged — promoting does not retroactively change how they first arrived.
* Program interest for the selected offering is either already set (and stays) or gets set by the promotion.