Appeals and organizing for new fiscal year

SheryAnne Wui

What is best practice(s) for appeals, funds and campaigns that happen on a year to year basis? Is it best to keep one appeal or generate a new (same) appeal for the next fiscal year? For instance Holiday vs Holiday 2013, Holiday 2014, and so on... How will either ways affect reports and/or queries or anything else?

JoAnn Strommen

SheryAnne Wui:
What is best practice(s) for appeals, funds and campaigns that happen on a year to year basis? Is it best to keep one appeal or generate a new (same) appeal for the next fiscal year? For instance Holiday vs Holiday 2013, Holiday 2014, and so on... How will either ways affect reports and/or queries or anything else?

To me, "best practice" for this will vary depending on what your org needs/wants for reports/exports etc. 

As part of our annual campaign, we have a December mailing appeal each year.  Ours have unique names.  For me, this makes it a lot easier to run reports/queries etc as I do not have to worry about using a date criteria, especially as gifts come at the end of one fiscal year and start of the next from this appeal.  We can also easily exclude those who gave in Jan from March solicitor phase of the campaign and identy them for contact later in the year. 

(Yes, I can hear Melissa saying, why wouldn't you want to contact them again in March [:)].  Not what our org wants to do.  When we have contacted them that soon, generally get poor response and want to put efforts toward other prospects.  Those who gave in January not dropped, just approached later in year.) 

If you use the same appeal name, will you be able to filter them by gift date or some other piece of info for the reports that you will want?  Do you want to track that you asked them for appeal 2013 and for appeal 2014 on the appeal tab with the results?  Then you'll want separate.

You mention funds and campaigns but then focus on appeals.  For us, our annual campaign has a unique name for each year also.  Goals/reports are based on fund/solicitation year not fiscal year.   

For me best practice is unique names. 

Candace Chesler

SheryAnne Wui:
What is best practice(s) for appeals, funds and campaigns that happen on a year to year basis? Is it best to keep one appeal or generate a new (same) appeal for the next fiscal year? For instance Holiday vs Holiday 2013, Holiday 2014, and so on... How will either ways affect reports and/or queries or anything else?

SheryAnne - For Event related campaigns I prefer to keep the Appeal Names the same from year to year. That way I can run the Appeal Comparison Summary report for specific date ranges and see how the event is doing from year to year. Especially useful for the Golf Outing and the Gala - the volunteer chairs love to see how they are doing compared to previous years. Based on the actual event dates for the past three to four years - I set up the grid to show ticket sales, sponsorships, ,donations, raffles, etc for XX weeks out from the event. Change the dates each week and give the chairs a fresh report of current sales. The more I think about it - my preference is to keep Appeal Names as consistent as possible from year to year and let the Campaign name reflect the Fiscal Year. I run reports based on date ranges and associated campaigns. For example - if a November/December mailing with a Holiday focus is always sent out each year as part of the Annual Fund campaign - I would have a Holiday appeal but Annual Fund campaigns of AnnualFund13, AnnualFund14, AnnualFund15 - etc. For me - I can think about reporting on revenue received for a given Fiscal Year and comparing year to year more easily if I manage it this way. As Joanne said - "best practice" - whatever works best for your organization. Candace Chesler

Melissa Graves 3

SheryAnne Wui:
What is best practice(s) for appeals, funds and campaigns that happen on a year to year basis? Is it best to keep one appeal or generate a new (same) appeal for the next fiscal year? For instance Holiday vs Holiday 2013, Holiday 2014, and so on... How will either ways affect reports and/or queries or anything else?

SherryAnne, My best recommendation is to read Bill Connors Fundraising in the Raiser's Edge: A non-technical guide. It is the best guide for so much but how to make decisions on campaigns, funds, appeals is where it really shines. there really isn't a one size fits all but there are some definite don'ts. In general, I recommend each mailing has it's own unique appeal so you can track response rate, etc. and do analysis on how that mailing performed. Else, how do you know what your constituents respond to and do not? I would even avoid generics like Holiday, use dates. Nov 2014 donor renewal, Nov 2014 donor acquisition, etc. Melissa