Fund statements sent by community foundations

Roxanne Fry

We converted to Blackbaud products about a year ago, and this is the first time we're ready to prepare and mail fund statements to fund advisors. We've asked tech support how to do this, and we've been told that there's no way to pull financial info for a specific period and connect it with those constituents that have a "fund statement" Relationship. During our conversation with tech support, we were told that we were the first community foundation they've heard of that wanted to prepare and mail fund statements to fund advisors. We're thinking that perhaps we're not correctly explaining our goal to tech support, because surely other community foundations send fund statements of some sort? You can see a sample of our fund statement here: http://goo.gl/kXrQz. It's also attached. We welcome any and all feedback re: your current processes and approaches for mailing fund statements to fund advisors!

Melissa Graves 2

Roxanne fry:
We converted to Blackbaud products about a year ago, and this is the first time we're ready to prepare and mail fund statements to fund advisors. We've asked tech support how to do this, and we've been told that there's no way to pull financial info for a specific period and connect it with those constituents that have a "fund statement" Relationship. During our conversation with tech support, we were told that we were the first community foundation they've heard of that wanted to prepare and mail fund statements to fund advisors. We're thinking that perhaps we're not correctly explaining our goal to tech support, because surely other community foundations send fund statements of some sort? You can see a sample of our fund statement here: http://goo.gl/kXrQz. It's also attached. We welcome any and all feedback re: your current processes and approaches for mailing fund statements to fund advisors!

Roxanne,

Iin Raiser's Edge, if you export a fund export - you can include fund relationships. This export can be used to create a custom crystal report.

What concerns me about this report is that it contains more than fundraising information. RE is a fundraising database. Are you trying to do this from Financial Edge? Information like investment income, grants paid, etc. is not stored in RE and is really not the place for it. That kind of information would come from Finance software.

Gina Gerhard

Roxanne fry:
We converted to Blackbaud products about a year ago, and this is the first time we're ready to prepare and mail fund statements to fund advisors. We've asked tech support how to do this, and we've been told that there's no way to pull financial info for a specific period and connect it with those constituents that have a "fund statement" Relationship. During our conversation with tech support, we were told that we were the first community foundation they've heard of that wanted to prepare and mail fund statements to fund advisors. We're thinking that perhaps we're not correctly explaining our goal to tech support, because surely other community foundations send fund statements of some sort? You can see a sample of our fund statement here: http://goo.gl/kXrQz. It's also attached. We welcome any and all feedback re: your current processes and approaches for mailing fund statements to fund advisors!

Roxanne - For our community foundation, we had a custom routine developed by Blackbaud that starts in Financial Edge for the fund info and balances, and then reaches into Raiser's Edge for the contact and mailing information.  Our statement looks very similar to your example.

So yes, every community foundation needs to send these statements out and everyone has developed some way to do this.  I would suggest you contact Barton Dyson or Justin Morrow at Blackbaud; they work specifically with communitiy foundations and I'm sure would be able to advise you on financial statements.

 

Roxanne Fry

Gina Gerhard:

Roxanne - For our community foundation, we had a custom routine developed by Blackbaud that starts in Financial Edge for the fund info and balances, and then reaches into Raiser's Edge for the contact and mailing information.  Our statement looks very similar to your example.

So yes, every community foundation needs to send these statements out and everyone has developed some way to do this.  I would suggest you contact Barton Dyson or Justin Morrow at Blackbaud; they work specifically with communitiy foundations and I'm sure would be able to advise you on financial statements.

 

Thank you, Gina! Exactly the starting place I need. I'll get in touch with them! Roxanne

Joshua Bekerman bCLO bCRE

Gina Gerhard:

Roxanne - For our community foundation, we had a custom routine developed by Blackbaud that starts in Financial Edge for the fund info and balances, and then reaches into Raiser's Edge for the contact and mailing information.  Our statement looks very similar to your example.

So yes, every community foundation needs to send these statements out and everyone has developed some way to do this.  I would suggest you contact Barton Dyson or Justin Morrow at Blackbaud; they work specifically with communitiy foundations and I'm sure would be able to advise you on financial statements.

 

[quote user="Gina Gerhard"]

Roxanne - For our community foundation, we had a custom routine developed by Blackbaud that starts in Financial Edge for the fund info and balances, and then reaches into Raiser's Edge for the contact and mailing information.

 [/quote] 

Couldn't you enter and pull the contact and mailing information from the Project record in FE? 

 

Gina Gerhard

Josh Bekerman:

[quote user="Gina Gerhard"]

Roxanne - For our community foundation, we had a custom routine developed by Blackbaud that starts in Financial Edge for the fund info and balances, and then reaches into Raiser's Edge for the contact and mailing information.

 [/quote] 

Couldn't you enter and pull the contact and mailing information from the Project record in FE? 

 

Josh -

In FE, I do not see a way to categorize the contacts in the FE project record. 

In RE, you maintain very specific fund relationships that control the access to the community foundation parts in BBNC. So you already have this area that has to be accurate and kept up-to-date, to ensure that only the right people have rights to the fund summary and grant recommendation forms.

Why would you replicate this fairly detailed information in FE (and it doesn't look you really can) - and then have to maintain this information in two places?

If you had to develop a fund statement routine, I think the way things are now in our systems -- you would start in the RE fund record to figure out which funds need statements quarterly and/or annually, look to the fund relationships to figure out who needs to get who needs to get the statement, and then reach out to FE for the project financial information.