setup and reporting of long-term "campaign" with sub/mini campaigns and strategic priorities

Candy Edwards

I've posted in a few other online groups on LinkedIn, so please forgive me if you've already seen this discussion.  



I would love to have some discussion and hear your opinion on how you would set-up and report in RE on long-term "campaign" with sub/mini campaigns.



1. If you launched a global type giving initiative that would encompass all giving (including capital campaigns, annual fund appeals, etc) for the next few years that will externally be publicized as a campaign would you need to call it a campaign internally?   



2. If said campaign/theme has 5 strategic priorities within it, would you make those campaigns and make the them a category? an attribute? etc?



3. If you have a true capital campaign (with events, and appeals, etc) that falls within this theme, and falls within one of the 5 strategic priorities how would you track this?



Bottom line, I need to be able to track the giving by (1)theme (2) strategic priority and (3) campaign.  Not all gifts would be tied to a campaign, but all gifts within a certain time frame would be tied to the theme and would fall into one of the 5 strategic categories.  



I've thought of making the theme a campaign category and adding an attribute for the strategic priorities. I've thought of making the theme a campaign attribute. I've thought of changing fund types to each of the strategic categories, but some funds fall under multiple categories. Since the tracking is truly based on all giving I feel like this should be tied to each gift.  I thought of gift attributes as the strategic priorities.  But, this puts the burden on the gift processor. The burden of determining the category and the extra step of adding an attribute to each gift.



Each time I think I've figured it out, I come up with a reason my plan won't work.  If any of you have dealt with a similar model or can offer any insight on the best way to do this I would love to hear your opinions. 

JoAnn Strommen

Candy Edwards:

I've posted in a few other online groups on LinkedIn, so please forgive me if you've already seen this discussion.  



I would love to have some discussion and hear your opinion on how you would set-up and report in RE on long-term "campaign" with sub/mini campaigns.



1. If you launched a global type giving initiative that would encompass all giving (including capital campaigns, annual fund appeals, etc) for the next few years that will externally be publicized as a campaign would you need to call it a campaign internally?   



2. If said campaign/theme has 5 strategic priorities within it, would you make those campaigns and make the them a category? an attribute? etc?



3. If you have a true capital campaign (with events, and appeals, etc) that falls within this theme, and falls within one of the 5 strategic priorities how would you track this?



Bottom line, I need to be able to track the giving by (1)theme (2) strategic priority and (3) campaign.  Not all gifts would be tied to a campaign, but all gifts within a certain time frame would be tied to the theme and would fall into one of the 5 strategic categories.  



I've thought of making the theme a campaign category and adding an attribute for the strategic priorities. I've thought of making the theme a campaign attribute. I've thought of changing fund types to each of the strategic categories, but some funds fall under multiple categories. Since the tracking is truly based on all giving I feel like this should be tied to each gift.  I thought of gift attributes as the strategic priorities.  But, this puts the burden on the gift processor. The burden of determining the category and the extra step of adding an attribute to each gift.



Each time I think I've figured it out, I come up with a reason my plan won't work.  If any of you have dealt with a similar model or can offer any insight on the best way to do this I would love to hear your opinions. 

Was sort of waiting for other replies...   Not sure what to say for a lot of your questions but here goes...

1.  No, you don't need to call it a campaign internally.  Just be sure those working with it know how you're defining all terminology. 

Are you integrated with your financial software? That will be a factor as funds and appeals are what is linked to general ledger accounts.  So any $ needing to go to different accounts would need to be in dfferent funds. 

Campaign category is mostly just an internal RE field.  Maybe someone else has some good suggestions for using it.  Ours populate but are not utilized for anything at this point. 

As you mentioned, I'd avoid having to add a gift attribute if possible but it would work.  Just be sure to stick to fields you can enter via batch if you don't want to have to do manually.

I'm not seeing a value in having "the theme a campaign attribute".  I don't see how you'd use it. 

Maybe users could give more ideas if you could further explain "to track the giving by (1)theme (2) strategic priority and (3) campaign."  It sounds like your planning a multi-year fund raising project.  It will raise funds for various funds - capital, annual fund, ? ...  Not sure I get how you're using theme.  Will theme be linked to certain dates?   

Will you be utilizing solicitors?  From my experience, I will not  structure in RE any part of our fund raising efforts that use solicitors as appeals.  Can't assign in batch solicitor pop-up window can't do global adds - have to import. 

Christine Cooke 2

Candy Edwards:

I've posted in a few other online groups on LinkedIn, so please forgive me if you've already seen this discussion.  



I would love to have some discussion and hear your opinion on how you would set-up and report in RE on long-term "campaign" with sub/mini campaigns.



1. If you launched a global type giving initiative that would encompass all giving (including capital campaigns, annual fund appeals, etc) for the next few years that will externally be publicized as a campaign would you need to call it a campaign internally?   



2. If said campaign/theme has 5 strategic priorities within it, would you make those campaigns and make the them a category? an attribute? etc?



3. If you have a true capital campaign (with events, and appeals, etc) that falls within this theme, and falls within one of the 5 strategic priorities how would you track this?



Bottom line, I need to be able to track the giving by (1)theme (2) strategic priority and (3) campaign.  Not all gifts would be tied to a campaign, but all gifts within a certain time frame would be tied to the theme and would fall into one of the 5 strategic categories.  



I've thought of making the theme a campaign category and adding an attribute for the strategic priorities. I've thought of making the theme a campaign attribute. I've thought of changing fund types to each of the strategic categories, but some funds fall under multiple categories. Since the tracking is truly based on all giving I feel like this should be tied to each gift.  I thought of gift attributes as the strategic priorities.  But, this puts the burden on the gift processor. The burden of determining the category and the extra step of adding an attribute to each gift.



Each time I think I've figured it out, I come up with a reason my plan won't work.  If any of you have dealt with a similar model or can offer any insight on the best way to do this I would love to hear your opinions. 

1.  I think a lot of times that organization do not use Campaigns in the way in which it was intended, there is some confusion in the definition and the vocabulary may different depending on the type of organization.  Based on my experience with an multi-year Campaign that encompasses many areas, and also with Capital Campaigns, which are never one year.  I would have a Campaign that is named something that describes what it is.  Global Campaign or Comprehensive Campaign, something like that.  Then, later down the line, many many years from now, this will help tell the story when others run reports/look at data and see that every one of these funds tie back to the same group/Campaign during a particular period of time.

2. I an interpreting that you are using Campaign and Theme interchangably here. If the Campaign/Theme is all encompassing to have Annual Fund, Capital Improvement, Other Designated Areas of Focus, etc, then each one of those should be a Fund.  Even if they all have the same account number on the Finance side.  Example:  Annual Fund, Capital:Gym, Capital:Library, OutreachProgram, Feasability Study, etc.  This way you can pull reports on each component separately or as a group, or combos of certain ones.

3.  If you have a true Capital Campaign, I would label each fund with Cap.Gym, Cap,Library, Cap.Whatever.  You track the source for the funds with Appeal.  Use the Appeal to tell how you got there. Gala Invite, Direct Mail, Email, Personal Ask, Private Phase Cocktail Party, Public Phase KickOff, Event Attendance, etc.  All of these Appeals can also have the code start with Cap so that that it is clear that it was for a specific time period.  And using Appeal this way allows you to pull reports by Appeal and see how many different buckets the $$ fell into, even if the event or ask was for another area of the campaign.

 

After my experiences with reporting in regards to Gift Attributes, I would really try and stay away from that, there are some glitches that RE has been working on for some time that affect what type of info you can get by pulling on Gift Attributes -- unless you want to Export and manually tally every time.

 It is okay if Funds fall under multiple categories, if by categories you mean how the donor was approached for funding.  The data entry person will have to be mindful of which ask got the response.  You can set up queries to pop up and alert data entry in Batch that there are multiple choices so they are reminded to pay attention.

 I have used what I have shared here through three capital campaigns and two of those were comprehensive campaigns, comprehensive meaning during a certain period of years, it was all inclusive of several areas -- capital and annual fund, programs.  I have found that sometimes we over think these things.  Trying to cover all bases, but sometimes too many.  Putting in time on entering details that never get utilized. Just my humble opinion. :-)