Gift Import Process

Jenna Graham

We're having an event and using an outside website and Paypal to collect gifts. This part of the project is out of my control. At the end of the event, I'll be given an Excel sheet of donors and amounts given, as well as contact information for those individuals. I want to import these gifts. Does this process make sense? 1. Clean up data in gift spreadsheet. 2. Create spreadsheet of constituent IDs for all constituents in database. 3. Use vlookup to add constituent IDs to applicable constituents in the gift spreadsheet. 4. Separate gifts from constituents and non-constituents. 5. Import gifts from constituents into Raiser's Edge. 6. Import new constituents into Raiser's Edge, then import the gift records of those individuals. I haven't done this before. I'll have about $40k worth of $10-$250 gifts, so I want to do it right and efficiently. Thank you for your help.

JoAnn Strommen

Jenna Graham:
We're having an event and using an outside website and Paypal to collect gifts. This part of the project is out of my control. At the end of the event, I'll be given an Excel sheet of donors and amounts given, as well as contact information for those individuals. I want to import these gifts. Does this process make sense? 1. Clean up data in gift spreadsheet. 2. Create spreadsheet of constituent IDs for all constituents in database. 3. Use vlookup to add constituent IDs to applicable constituents in the gift spreadsheet. 4. Separate gifts from constituents and non-constituents. 5. Import gifts from constituents into Raiser's Edge. 6. Import new constituents into Raiser's Edge, then import the gift records of those individuals. I haven't done this before. I'll have about $40k worth of $10-$250 gifts, so I want to do it right and efficiently. Thank you for your help.

Looks like you've got the basics. 

The basic cautions:

Back up your database before an import like this.

Besure you have working import ID's for new constituents before you separate them from the gift records - or a way to reconnect.back up gift file if there's a glitch.

Create a test file of a few records, validate and import them first, constituents and then gifts.  Check those records carefully to be sure all data is there and in correct fields. Even look for things like 'is the send mail' box checked for the addresses? 

Looking at your sequence, I'd be tempted to import the new constituents first. Then do all gifts in one import.  Works either way. 

Other things to have considered:

Am guessing you'll be adding some fields like constituent code for the new records or any attribute fields your org requires. (We have one for source of how record came to be in RE.)

So, the gift spreadsheet has IDs for existing constituents?  Good job! 

Do you have to deal with benefits received from event when figuring gift amount? 

Best wishes...

Jenna Graham

JoAnn Strommen:

Looks like you've got the basics. 

The basic cautions:

Back up your database before an import like this.

Besure you have working import ID's for new constituents before you separate them from the gift records - or a way to reconnect.back up gift file if there's a glitch.

Create a test file of a few records, validate and import them first, constituents and then gifts.  Check those records carefully to be sure all data is there and in correct fields. Even look for things like 'is the send mail' box checked for the addresses? 

Looking at your sequence, I'd be tempted to import the new constituents first. Then do all gifts in one import.  Works either way. 

Other things to have considered:

Am guessing you'll be adding some fields like constituent code for the new records or any attribute fields your org requires. (We have one for source of how record came to be in RE.)

So, the gift spreadsheet has IDs for existing constituents?  Good job! 

Do you have to deal with benefits received from event when figuring gift amount? 

Best wishes...

Thank you for talking this through with me! It completely makes sense to add new constituents first. I can't believe I didn't realize that. -I will need to add constituent codes for new individuals. I'm not sure what it will be, since we don't really know who they are, other than friends and family of the students at our school. We have most of the grandparents in our database, so those will be easily recognizable. -The gift spreadsheet will not have IDs for existing constituents. I'll have to export a separate spreadsheet of IDs and use vlookup to match IDs to constituents. This is going to be messy, but I'm not sure there's any way around it. Have you done this before? -There are no benefits for this gift, so no need to worry about this part.

JoAnn Strommen

Jenna Graham:
Thank you for talking this through with me! It completely makes sense to add new constituents first. I can't believe I didn't realize that. -I will need to add constituent codes for new individuals. I'm not sure what it will be, since we don't really know who they are, other than friends and family of the students at our school. We have most of the grandparents in our database, so those will be easily recognizable. -The gift spreadsheet will not have IDs for existing constituents. I'll have to export a separate spreadsheet of IDs and use vlookup to match IDs to constituents. This is going to be messy, but I'm not sure there's any way around it. Have you done this before? -There are no benefits for this gift, so no need to worry about this part.

LOL - no I haven't done an import from an event like that - for $40K I could find a way to do it through. [:D]

I've done mostly constituent imports, solicitor assignment imports and years ago a constituent and gift import when we brought in donation history from branch YMCA.  I just tend to be pretty analytical and learn from my mistakes - like have a query of the import so you can do a global add if you find you forgot an attribute or some field.

Your right, the matching of existing records to those in your gift spreadsheet will take the most work.  One of the reasons accurate data entry is so key.

Don't know your org's procedure for constituent codes, but it makes good case for general codes.  If it were our event the new records would go in with constituent code of 'Special Event Donor' - while we hope to add them as 'Donor' for annual & capital campaigns this allows us to exclude/include them as we need. 

Not part of your import but will you need to create family relationships to your students in RE if they are family?  Project tfor another day (or month).

JoAnn Strommen

JoAnn Strommen:

LOL - no I haven't done an import from an event like that - for $40K I could find a way to do it through. [:D]

I've done mostly constituent imports, solicitor assignment imports and years ago a constituent and gift import when we brought in donation history from branch YMCA.  I just tend to be pretty analytical and learn from my mistakes - like have a query of the import so you can do a global add if you find you forgot an attribute or some field.

Your right, the matching of existing records to those in your gift spreadsheet will take the most work.  One of the reasons accurate data entry is so key.

Don't know your org's procedure for constituent codes, but it makes good case for general codes.  If it were our event the new records would go in with constituent code of 'Special Event Donor' - while we hope to add them as 'Donor' for annual & capital campaigns this allows us to exclude/include them as we need. 

Not part of your import but will you need to create family relationships to your students in RE if they are family?  Project tfor another day (or month).

Depending on how big you want the import file to be vs. how much work you want to do in RE using global add, don't forget your needed addressee/salutations.  My last constituent import I added as many fields as I could like gender, title 1, etc.

Jacob Williamson

Jenna Graham:
We're having an event and using an outside website and Paypal to collect gifts. This part of the project is out of my control. At the end of the event, I'll be given an Excel sheet of donors and amounts given, as well as contact information for those individuals. I want to import these gifts. Does this process make sense? 1. Clean up data in gift spreadsheet. 2. Create spreadsheet of constituent IDs for all constituents in database. 3. Use vlookup to add constituent IDs to applicable constituents in the gift spreadsheet. 4. Separate gifts from constituents and non-constituents. 5. Import gifts from constituents into Raiser's Edge. 6. Import new constituents into Raiser's Edge, then import the gift records of those individuals. I haven't done this before. I'll have about $40k worth of $10-$250 gifts, so I want to do it right and efficiently. Thank you for your help.

Do you use ImportOmatic? It's a remarkable piece of software, made by some people that worked with Raiser's Edge. It's not free--I think it works out to like $8000 a year or so--but it's wonderful for adding new members, matching gifts with some useful fuzzy logic, and such. It's also got a mailing list module that's helpful, so your mailing list people can live in Raiser's Edge but not infect your actual membership records. ImportOmatic's just about halved the amount of time it takes me to enter gift lists like this. Wonderful stuff.