Anonymous (ie, full details unknown) constituent records

Anonymous Blackbaud User

Hi there,

I've been brought into a UK based Hospice for a year to work with their systems and I can see a lot of good I can do around Raiser's Edge. One thing that doesn't feel right is that for gifts where we only have a cheque we are batching them against an anonymous record (literally, the last name is 'anonymous donor'). Does anyone have experience with this situation and what the best approach is to take? Most cheques just have initials and surname, sometimes a title too. Also they often come from a joint account, so there will be two names on the one cheque. I'm wondering if it's best to move away from the 'anonymous donor' records and create constituent records with the limited details we have, and then let any duplication get picked up by the regular deduplication process that I am looking to introduce(?). We are a local charity so only have around 100k constituent records.

All help, advice and experiences greatly received!

Cheers,

Mike

JoAnn Strommen

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

Hi there,

I've been brought into a UK based Hospice for a year to work with their systems and I can see a lot of good I can do around Raiser's Edge. One thing that doesn't feel right is that for gifts where we only have a cheque we are batching them against an anonymous record (literally, the last name is 'anonymous donor'). Does anyone have experience with this situation and what the best approach is to take? Most cheques just have initials and surname, sometimes a title too. Also they often come from a joint account, so there will be two names on the one cheque. I'm wondering if it's best to move away from the 'anonymous donor' records and create constituent records with the limited details we have, and then let any duplication get picked up by the regular deduplication process that I am looking to introduce(?). We are a local charity so only have around 100k constituent records.

All help, advice and experiences greatly received!

Cheers,

Mike

 If I'm reading your post correctly, if you 'only have a check' you're putting on an anonymous donor record?  Why?  Just because there's no other paperwork with the donation? 

This seems like a very strange practice to me.  So if I send you a check I get no thank you/acknowledgement/receipt for my donation?  If you have a name and address why not create a record?  Do you mean most of your checks do not have addresses on?  That's a bit different, but I would still create records with name/both names and work toward getting more info.

We use an "unknown donor" but things recorded there are truly from an unknown person/persons. 

My 2 cents.... 

 

Anonymous Blackbaud User

JoAnn Strommen:

 If I'm reading your post correctly, if you 'only have a check' you're putting on an anonymous donor record?  Why?  Just because there's no other paperwork with the donation? 

This seems like a very strange practice to me.  So if I send you a check I get no thank you/acknowledgement/receipt for my donation?  If you have a name and address why not create a record?  Do you mean most of your checks do not have addresses on?  That's a bit different, but I would still create records with name/both names and work toward getting more info.

We use an "unknown donor" but things recorded there are truly from an unknown person/persons. 

My 2 cents.... 

 

Hi JoAnn, thanks for your reply. We do not have an address or any other information except the name on a cheque (eg AB Smith). An example is somebody has a birthday party and asks for donations to our charity as this is in memory of their parent who died recently and we provided care to them. In this example we would then receive a letter and a bunch of cheques from the person whose party it was. We tribute the gifts against the deceased parent and soft credit the person whose birthday party it was. We would then send a thank you letter to the person whose party it was. In terms of adding each cheque we add them against an anonymous constituent but I wonder whether we should create a constituent record for each person who gives a cheque - all we have is their cheque, and the only information on the cheques is their name (initials and surname). From your answer it seems you suggest we should create new constituent records, though I suppose if there is no way of getting any more details then perhaps we should not. Hmmnnn ..!

Nicole S

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

Hi JoAnn, thanks for your reply. We do not have an address or any other information except the name on a cheque (eg AB Smith). An example is somebody has a birthday party and asks for donations to our charity as this is in memory of their parent who died recently and we provided care to them. In this example we would then receive a letter and a bunch of cheques from the person whose party it was. We tribute the gifts against the deceased parent and soft credit the person whose birthday party it was. We would then send a thank you letter to the person whose party it was. In terms of adding each cheque we add them against an anonymous constituent but I wonder whether we should create a constituent record for each person who gives a cheque - all we have is their cheque, and the only information on the cheques is their name (initials and surname). From your answer it seems you suggest we should create new constituent records, though I suppose if there is no way of getting any more details then perhaps we should not. Hmmnnn ..!

 it's unusual, but we have gotten checks with only a name.  We make a record without the address.  You would be surprised how often you get the address later on.

Gina Gerhard

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

Hi JoAnn, thanks for your reply. We do not have an address or any other information except the name on a cheque (eg AB Smith). An example is somebody has a birthday party and asks for donations to our charity as this is in memory of their parent who died recently and we provided care to them. In this example we would then receive a letter and a bunch of cheques from the person whose party it was. We tribute the gifts against the deceased parent and soft credit the person whose birthday party it was. We would then send a thank you letter to the person whose party it was. In terms of adding each cheque we add them against an anonymous constituent but I wonder whether we should create a constituent record for each person who gives a cheque - all we have is their cheque, and the only information on the cheques is their name (initials and surname). From your answer it seems you suggest we should create new constituent records, though I suppose if there is no way of getting any more details then perhaps we should not. Hmmnnn ..!

Mike - For these situations where there are a lot of small checks coming in, we usually create a 'Friends of' organization record and then enter all the gifts under that record. This way it 'bundles' the donations that were intended for the same purpose, you can enter notes on each gift for more information, and you don't end up creating a lot of individual records for people who perhaps are not interested in donating in the future.

Nina Williams

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

Hi there,

I've been brought into a UK based Hospice for a year to work with their systems and I can see a lot of good I can do around Raiser's Edge. One thing that doesn't feel right is that for gifts where we only have a cheque we are batching them against an anonymous record (literally, the last name is 'anonymous donor'). Does anyone have experience with this situation and what the best approach is to take? Most cheques just have initials and surname, sometimes a title too. Also they often come from a joint account, so there will be two names on the one cheque. I'm wondering if it's best to move away from the 'anonymous donor' records and create constituent records with the limited details we have, and then let any duplication get picked up by the regular deduplication process that I am looking to introduce(?). We are a local charity so only have around 100k constituent records.

All help, advice and experiences greatly received!

Cheers,

Mike

 In the situation where a check is received with just a name, I do create a new record. If it was from a birthday party or such, I ask the host for the information.  I also try to find an address via the internet (Whitepages.com) but I don't know if the UK has that.

That being said, I do have an active Anonymous record. From time to time we get cash, no name attached, nothing to indicate the donor. I assume it is from a regular donor or an alumni who either thinks we know who it is, forgot to write a name down anywhere or really, really wants to be anonymous. No one has asked for a tax receipt, so I have no idea who it is from. It is not much money, but I have to book it somewhere.

JoAnn Strommen

Gina Gerhard:
Mike - For these situations where there are a lot of small checks coming in, we usually create a 'Friends of' organization record and then enter all the gifts under that record. This way it 'bundles' the donations that were intended for the same purpose, you can enter notes on each gift for more information, and you don't end up creating a lot of individual records for people who perhaps are not interested in donating in the future.

Mike,

The one issue I'm still wondering about is your requirements in UK for receipting donations.  As a good business practice, should these donors be receipted?

Maybe when the person who throws the party submits the checks, they also be required to provide address info.  We do this with memorial gifts submitted by the family - name/address/amount so that we can properly acknowledge their memorial gift.   

If you choose to just take the $ with name only, I like the idea of bundling the gifts under a friends of or similar type of record.  If you don't know who John Smith is and will never know correct address or if he's on of the 5 other John Smith's in your database, it's nice to not clutter up your database with a name only. 

 Again just thinking... 

 

Anonymous Blackbaud User

JoAnn Strommen:

Mike,

The one issue I'm still wondering about is your requirements in UK for receipting donations.  As a good business practice, should these donors be receipted?

Maybe when the person who throws the party submits the checks, they also be required to provide address info.  We do this with memorial gifts submitted by the family - name/address/amount so that we can properly acknowledge their memorial gift.   

If you choose to just take the $ with name only, I like the idea of bundling the gifts under a friends of or similar type of record.  If you don't know who John Smith is and will never know correct address or if he's on of the 5 other John Smith's in your database, it's nice to not clutter up your database with a name only. 

 Again just thinking... 

 

Thank you all for the insightful comments, it's given me a lot to think about!

JoAnn, I like your idea about grouping the gifts under a 'friends of' record and I shall look into this further. The example I gave was from a person that did not contact us before having their birthday party, I think the best we can do is ensure that when people do contact us before running an event then we'll send a bunch of gift aid/donation forms so we can collect full details.

 Thanks again to you all, this was my first post here and this forum is great

 Mike