How does everyone record major gift pipeline stages?
Hi there,
I'm working on a project to tidy up our major gift pipeline recording / reporting and was wondering how other organisations go about their pipeline recording?
We have the Prospect module and record the current pipeline stage under 'Prospect status'. Does anyone know whether it's possible to obtain / view a history of historic 'Prospect statuses'? I've been told not by my colleagues although this seems surprising to me as I'd have thought it'd be pretty key information for a lot of organisations.
Because of the apparent lack of a 'Prospect Status' history we also record our pipeline stages in attributes so that we can keep a history. This has inevitably led to discrpenacies between the current pipeline stage in 'Prospect Status' and the most recent 'Pipeline' attribute. Users dislike it as it means they have another thing to think about. I've been told we still record the current pipeline under 'Prospect Status' as it's not always obvious which is the current pipeline stage when looking at a record with a large number of attributes and also because the most important major gift information is held within the Prospect module.
I'd be interested to hear what others do to enable them to keep a history of their pipeline stages.
Many thanks in advance for any responses.
Pete
Comments
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I am following this thread as I would very much like to hear what other organizations do. I've heard of users using either a prospect status action, or a prospect status constituent attribute. Seems super complex for something RE should very easily be able to capture.0
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Pete - I think in your post you're hitting on the challenge of prospect/pipeline data. It can get somewhat complex/messy pretty quickly if you're trying to record each step of the process vs. just current state.
Is there really true value in recording the history of each stage of the major gift?- There's a 'Deadline' date field where you could record what your target date is for the gift.
- You then have your 'Status' field where you capture what stage you're in.
- Based on these two fields, I'd think you could report out on what is basically 'overdue' based on whatever parameters you set within your organization.
- I think this is the type of area where yes, you COULD capture all sorts of detail but what is the most effective use of staff's time?
- in analyzing how long it took through all the stages
- or more significantly, what do you have in 'inventory' and what's your plan to effectively work what you have in your pipeline?
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We've been working on a 'moves management' system in RE for the past few years. Because we have four foundations in one database, the process took awhile to get everyone using the Proposals in the same manner. We rarely use the Prospect Status because there is only one and that prospect can be at a different stage for each foundation. Instead, we create proposals for each major gift potential 'ask'.
All actions for the 'ask' are connected to that specific proposal and our action types are the steps in the 'moves management' cycle (Identification, Qualification Research, Discovery Fundraiser, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closure and Stewardship). So when they add an action, they choose the specific stage in the cycle and, with a bit of work, we can track when the prospect moved from one stage to the next.
We've been able to use Query and Export and are now working on some Crystal Reports to track our proposals.
Would be glad to share our Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined, if interested.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
Milly
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My organization is part of a cohort of healthcare organizations that is analyzing major gift performance, and this is one of the main performance indicators that is being measured. Similar to how the Proposal Analysis Report gives you number of days a proposal has been active based on when the proposal record was added, so too should you be able to report on number of days a prospect has been active in your major gift pipeline, preferably in each pipeline phase, without having to build complex queries/exports to arrive at those numbers. And it makes sense that you should be able to do this easily through the Prospect Module.
Definitely something I've added to the list of RE's Discovery Topics.
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Gina - that is definitely worth considering. My initial thoughts were that it would be worth having the historic pipeline information if we could devise a method that would enable us to report effectively on it. The plan was to use the time taken at each pipeline stage to help analyse major gift / canvasser (solicitor in the American version of RE) performance and help set / adjust pipeline stage standards. Only having the current pipeline stage would not allow historic comparisons. However, in reality, you might be right - is it going to be too complex to report on this effectively and is the added value worth it?
Milly, I would be really interested in your Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined if you're willing to share.
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I'm not sure whether it's just me, but I couldn't see the original replies I received to this topic when it was posed on the old RE forum. In case it's the same for everyone, I'll post the responses below as they might be of interest:
23rd Feb 2015 Nicole S
Is it possible that instead of an attribute you could use an action?
24th Feb 2015 Pete Hall
Hi Nicole,Thank you for your reply. I had a bit of an explore around the forum and it does seem like quite a few organisations use actions rather than attributes. It seems the advantage of this is that you can:
- associate an action with a solicitor
- set reminders / future actions
- mark actions as complete (so easier to highlight the current pipeline stage)
- create action tracks
- record more comprehensive notes against the pipeline stage
If other organisations record pipeline stages / moves management in actions could anyone let me know how they use the classification and prospect status on the (optional module) prospect tab? I don't want us to be recording the same information in two places, although I did see somewhere that someone said they'd done a customisation that automatically updated actions when they changed the prospect status (I guess using VBA?).
If we did decide to move our pipeline stages from attributes to actions, does anyone have an idea of how large a project this would be (within RE)? Is it a relatively simple global update / delete or is it a lot more complicated than that? As you might be able to tell, I'm pretty new to RE!
Many thanks in advance
Pete
24th Feb 2015 Christine Cook
yes you are on the right track with using Actions not Attributes for moves management, for all the reasons you listed. And -- since you mention having the Prospect Module, yes Actions and Gift are linked to the Prospect Module. So if you change something in Actions or Gifts it will update on the linked Proposal in the Prospect Tab.
If you need to move all a pile of info from Attributes to Actions. The best thing would most likely be to export the info from Attributres, reformat and rename whatever fields need attention and then import that info back into RE in Actions. Then you can remove it from Attributes.
One thing you might survey -- at some point some folks may have also entered some moves management items into Notes. If so, then that should be moved to Actions also.
26th Feb 2015 Pete Hall
Hi Christine,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. That's really helpful information. I'm definitely leaning towards moving our moves management tracking from attributes to actions.
Does anyone who records moves management through actions have any advice on whether it is necessary to also fill in the Prospect Status field with the current pipeline stage? If so, what processes do you use to ensure the current pipeline stage matches between the action and the Prospect Status?
Many thanks
Pete
26th Feb 2015 Christine Cook
Pete -I have seen the Prospect Status used as an additional Status field that gives slightly different info that the Action Status. I meant to include in your original ask and got distracted. I have experienced this sort of structure or very similar at a couple different orgs.
Examples:
The Action Statuses would: 1-Discovery, 2-Cultivation, 3-Solicitation, 4-Stewardship, 8-Revisit (postpone until another period of time, a month/year etc), 9-Drop (action/ask/cultivation is off the table for this constituent)
There can be multiple actions with any of these statuses in Actions.
Prospect Status would similar but would be more long term: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, 8-Revisit, 9-Drop.
The Tiers would be based on a combo of wealth screen matrix of likelihood and capacity, and inclination along with consideration for their giving history at your organization.
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The crux of the above was that we have decided that we're gonig to move our pipeline recording from attributes to actions for the reasons described. We haven't yet decided on the process so, as mentioned, I'd be really interested in seeing your prospect cylcle / field definitions Milly.
One thing your post highlighted for me is that I hadn't yet looked into whether we should record pipeline stages as actions against the proposal on the Prospect tab (an optional RE module) or in general on the Actions tab. Our pipeline stage indicates the overall stage the constituent is at and is not currenlty tied to a proposal.
My initial thoughts were that it could be neater to record the pipeline stages as actions against the proposal as they could then be seen in one place and would also be visible on the Actions tab as well. This would mean the current pipeline stage against the proposal could also be considered the current pipeline stage for the constituent. However, this wouldn't be viable for us since we often have two concurrent propsals against a constituent and our major gifts team want the pipeline stage to indicate the overall stage the constituent is at. We already use the 'Status' field under Proposals to indicate what stage the ask is at.
In case it's of interest our current pipeline stages are:
01 Identify
02 Research
03 Engage
04 Cultivate
05 Ask
06 Agree
07 Steward
08 Parked
09 Dropped
10 Prospect Link
11 Deceased
Propsal Status:
01 Preparation
02 Submitted
03 Negotiation
04 Accepted
05 Handover
06 Declined
If anyone has any comments above the above set up I'd be interested to hear them.
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Milly Whittington:
We've been working on a 'moves management' system in RE for the past few years. Because we have four foundations in one database, the process took awhile to get everyone using the Proposals in the same manner. We rarely use the Prospect Status because there is only one and that prospect can be at a different stage for each foundation. Instead, we create proposals for each major gift potential 'ask'.
All actions for the 'ask' are connected to that specific proposal and our action types are the steps in the 'moves management' cycle (Identification, Qualification Research, Discovery Fundraiser, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closure and Stewardship). So when they add an action, they choose the specific stage in the cycle and, with a bit of work, we can track when the prospect moved from one stage to the next.
We've been able to use Query and Export and are now working on some Crystal Reports to track our proposals.
Would be glad to share our Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined, if interested.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
Milly
I am working on Moves Management and would love to see your system set up! Thanks for offering to share Milly! estella.mendez@dchstx.org
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Milly Whittington:
We've been working on a 'moves management' system in RE for the past few years. Because we have four foundations in one database, the process took awhile to get everyone using the Proposals in the same manner. We rarely use the Prospect Status because there is only one and that prospect can be at a different stage for each foundation. Instead, we create proposals for each major gift potential 'ask'.
All actions for the 'ask' are connected to that specific proposal and our action types are the steps in the 'moves management' cycle (Identification, Qualification Research, Discovery Fundraiser, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closure and Stewardship). So when they add an action, they choose the specific stage in the cycle and, with a bit of work, we can track when the prospect moved from one stage to the next.
We've been able to use Query and Export and are now working on some Crystal Reports to track our proposals.
Would be glad to share our Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined, if interested.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
Milly
Hi, I know I am about two years late to this post, but I would love to see your Prospect Cycle, Milly. Would you be willing to send it? Thanks! carrie@ats.org
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Estella Mendez:
Milly Whittington:
We've been working on a 'moves management' system in RE for the past few years. Because we have four foundations in one database, the process took awhile to get everyone using the Proposals in the same manner. We rarely use the Prospect Status because there is only one and that prospect can be at a different stage for each foundation. Instead, we create proposals for each major gift potential 'ask'.
All actions for the 'ask' are connected to that specific proposal and our action types are the steps in the 'moves management' cycle (Identification, Qualification Research, Discovery Fundraiser, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closure and Stewardship). So when they add an action, they choose the specific stage in the cycle and, with a bit of work, we can track when the prospect moved from one stage to the next.
We've been able to use Query and Export and are now working on some Crystal Reports to track our proposals.
Would be glad to share our Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined, if interested.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
Milly
I am working on Moves Management and would love to see your system set up! Thanks for offering to share Milly! estella.mendez@dchstx.orgHi Estella, I too am working on a moves management system and would love to see what you came up with if you are willing to share. Thanks! Carrie carrie@ats.org
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We don't have the Prospect module, we use Actions...
Raiser’s Edge Prospect Management
August 23, 2016
Incorporating this Action system helps us track prospects through each stage of the donor cycle. The action always refers to something that is to happen in the future. Each Action stage stays open (completed check box left empty) until the prospect moves from one stage to another. Anyone can easily see what the next step is for each of the prospects at any time.
Stage 1: Identification
When a prospect is suspected to have the capacity to make a gift of $10,000 or more, a prospect is at the initial state of "Identification." If there is no Raiser’s Edge file, one is created. The prospect is then assigned to the MG Officer for follow-up.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Identification
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be (shows on Action reminder)
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – email, phone, meeting, mailing
When the prospect moves into the Cultivation stage, the MG Identification action is marked complete.
Stage 2: Cultivation
The prospect remains in the Identification stage until the MG Officer and/or team ascertains philanthropic interest and capacity to give. After that is determined, the MG Officer completes a contact report assessing factors such as: attitude toward QEH, areas of interest and evaluation of gift potential.
After the prospect has been qualified as a viable prospect, the MG Officer designs a "strategy" outlining the general plan for cultivating and soliciting the prospect. The length of time that a prospect remains in cultivation for a major gift varies, but should be no longer than 18 months. All prospects should be asked for annual gifts every 12 months.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Cultivation
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – email, phone, meeting, mailing
When the prospect is moved into the Solicitation stage, the MG Cultivation stage is marked complete.
Stage 3: Solicitation
The prospect is moved into MG solicitation when it is determined that an "ASK" can be made. The steps of the ask, as well as the follow up to determine the answer, are recorded in the Notepad of the action. When the ask is made, a notepad type of “Ask completed” is used. A copy of the written proposal is kept in Media. The proposal includes a request for a specific amount of money to be paid over a specific period of time to be used for a specific purpose. Prospects are in the solicitation stage until an agreement is successfully negotiated or the prospect declines to give. NOTE: If the solicitation is declined, the prospect can be reassigned for Annual Programs and/or placed back in MG cultivation at the discretion of the staff.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Solicitation
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
Action Attribute is added to report the valuation:
Category: Valuation
Description: $amount
Date: Date added
Comments: Additional information if necessary
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – “ask completed” is used to record the ask; email, phone, meeting, mailing are other notepad types to use.
When the prospect makes the gift:- the MG Solicitation action is marked complete
- A second Action Attribute is added to report the gift amount:
Description: $amount
Date: Gift date
Comments: Additional information if necessary (e.g. pledge details)- and a new MG Stewardship action is created.
Stage 4: Stewardship
Once the gift is received, the prospect is moved to the Stewardship stage. The stewardship plan could include visits, invitations, personalized letters and phone calls. Following a period of stewardship, most donors will be cultivated for their next major gift.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Stewardship
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – email, phone, meeting, mailing
When the prospect is considered for cultivation for the next major gift, the Stewardship action is marked complete and a new MG Cultivation or MG Solicitation action is created.
A dashboard has been set up to show records in each of the categories as well as queries to show the MG prospect activity over a certain period.
Linda0 -
If you want to show a history of pipeline status, then each move should be recorded under the Actions tab. Actions link to Prospect/Prososals, as well as gifts and were designed to be utlized together. That way your each Action can have a new status and you can see the history with dates.Pete Hall:
Hi there,
I'm working on a project to tidy up our major gift pipeline recording / reporting and was wondering how other organisations go about their pipeline recording?
We have the Prospect module and record the current pipeline stage under 'Prospect status'. Does anyone know whether it's possible to obtain / view a history of historic 'Prospect statuses'? I've been told not by my colleagues although this seems surprising to me as I'd have thought it'd be pretty key information for a lot of organisations.
Because of the apparent lack of a 'Prospect Status' history we also record our pipeline stages in attributes so that we can keep a history. This has inevitably led to discrpenacies between the current pipeline stage in 'Prospect Status' and the most recent 'Pipeline' attribute. Users dislike it as it means they have another thing to think about. I've been told we still record the current pipeline under 'Prospect Status' as it's not always obvious which is the current pipeline stage when looking at a record with a large number of attributes and also because the most important major gift information is held within the Prospect module.
I'd be interested to hear what others do to enable them to keep a history of their pipeline stages.
Many thanks in advance for any responses.
Pete
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Carrie Sorensen:
Estella Mendez:
Milly Whittington:
We've been working on a 'moves management' system in RE for the past few years. Because we have four foundations in one database, the process took awhile to get everyone using the Proposals in the same manner. We rarely use the Prospect Status because there is only one and that prospect can be at a different stage for each foundation. Instead, we create proposals for each major gift potential 'ask'.
All actions for the 'ask' are connected to that specific proposal and our action types are the steps in the 'moves management' cycle (Identification, Qualification Research, Discovery Fundraiser, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closure and Stewardship). So when they add an action, they choose the specific stage in the cycle and, with a bit of work, we can track when the prospect moved from one stage to the next.
We've been able to use Query and Export and are now working on some Crystal Reports to track our proposals.
Would be glad to share our Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined, if interested.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
Milly
I am working on Moves Management and would love to see your system set up! Thanks for offering to share Milly! estella.mendez@dchstx.orgHi Estella, I too am working on a moves management system and would love to see what you came up with if you are willing to share. Thanks! Carrie carrie@ats.orgI am just beginning to work on a moves management system and would very much appreciate what you have to share. Thank you, Mary mschlosser@sbu.edu
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Hi Milly,
I would be very grateful if you would share with me too!
Jenny.Physioc@artcenter.edu
Thanks so much!0 -
With regards to dates and Overall Prospect Status, this info isn't visible on the front end in RE, but it is apparently in the data warehouse, if you have one. One of our Systems Team members found this when looking into some reporting options for us. It does show a date for whenever the Overall Prospect Status is changed. We haven't implemented any reports yet using this data, but it is there. Unless you are a Systems person/Report designer, however, it will require their help to build a report. None of the canned RE reports seem to have it.
Lauren0 -
Milly Whittington:
We've been working on a 'moves management' system in RE for the past few years. Because we have four foundations in one database, the process took awhile to get everyone using the Proposals in the same manner. We rarely use the Prospect Status because there is only one and that prospect can be at a different stage for each foundation. Instead, we create proposals for each major gift potential 'ask'.
All actions for the 'ask' are connected to that specific proposal and our action types are the steps in the 'moves management' cycle (Identification, Qualification Research, Discovery Fundraiser, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closure and Stewardship). So when they add an action, they choose the specific stage in the cycle and, with a bit of work, we can track when the prospect moved from one stage to the next.
We've been able to use Query and Export and are now working on some Crystal Reports to track our proposals.
Would be glad to share our Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined, if interested.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
Milly
Hi Milly, I am working on a Moves Management project and would to see your Prospect Cycle. Thanks for offering to share lwoods@goodsam.org
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We use Actions to track our Major Gift stages - we use four (Identification, Cultivation, Solicitation and Stewardship). Here's our documentation on it:
Incorporating this Action system helps us track prospects through each stage of the donor cycle. The action always refers to something that is to happen in the future. Each Action stage stays open (completed check box left empty) until the prospect moves from one stage to another. Anyone can easily see what the next step is for each of the prospects at any time.
Stage 1: Identification
When a prospect is suspected to have the capacity to make a gift of $10,000 or more, a prospect is at the initial state of "Identification." If there is no Raiser’s Edge file, one is created. The prospect is then assigned to the MG Officer for follow-up.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Identification
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – email, phone, meeting, mailing
When the prospect moves into the Cultivation stage, the MG Identification action is marked complete.
Stage 2: Cultivation
The prospect remains in the Identification stage until the MG Officer and/or team ascertains philanthropic interest and capacity to give. After that is determined, the MG Officer completes a contact report assessing factors such as: attitude toward QEH, areas of interest and evaluation of gift potential.
After the prospect has been qualified as a viable prospect, the MG Officer designs a "strategy" outlining the general plan for cultivating and soliciting the prospect. The length of time that a prospect remains in cultivation for a major gift varies, but should be no longer than 18 months. All prospects should be asked for annual gifts every 12 months.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Cultivation
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – email, phone, meeting, mailing
When the prospect is moved into the Solicitation stage, the MG Cultivation stage is marked complete.
Stage 3: Solicitation
The prospect is moved into MG solicitation when it is determined that an "ASK" can be made. The steps of the ask, as well as the follow up to determine the answer, are recorded in the Notepad of the action. When the ask is made, a notepad type of “Ask completed” is used. A copy of the written proposal is kept in Media. The proposal includes a request for a specific amount of money to be paid over a specific period of time to be used for a specific purpose. Prospects are in the solicitation stage until an agreement is successfully negotiated or the prospect declines to give. NOTE: If the solicitation is declined, the prospect can be reassigned for Annual Programs and/or placed back in MG cultivation at the discretion of the staff.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Solicitation
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
Action Attribute is added to report the valuation:
Category: Valuation
Description: $amount
Date: Date added
Comments: Additional information if necessary
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – “ask completed” is used to record the ask; email, phone, meeting, mailing are other notepad types to use.
When the prospect makes the gift:- the MG Solicitation action is marked complete
- A second Action Attribute is added to report the gift amount:
Description: $amount
Date: Gift date
Comments: Additional information if necessary (e.g. pledge details)- and a new MG Stewardship action is created.
Stage 4: Stewardship
Once the gift is received, the prospect is moved to the Stewardship stage. The stewardship plan could include visits, invitations, personalized letters and phone calls. Following a period of stewardship, most donors will be cultivated for their next major gift.
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: MG Stewardship
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
Add Action Notepad as necessary for each interaction with the prospect.
Notepad type should reflect the type of contact – email, phone, meeting, mailing
When the prospect is considered for cultivation for the next major gift, the Stewardship action is marked complete and a new MG Cultivation or MG Solicitation action is created.
Moving out of MG Moves Stages
When the prospect is to be considered outside of Major Gifts moves management, an Action Note is added to the final MG move to indicate the prospect has been moved to the Enhanced Giving program and the Action is marked completed:
Note type: Moved to EG
Notes: include an explanation of the reason for the move
A new Action is added:
Action Category: Task/Other
Action Type: EG Identification, EG Cultivation, or EG Solicitation
Action date: is set for next action to take place
Solicitor: assign the staff solicitor, and any other solicitor that may be involved
Notify: is set for the staff person to receive the action reminder
Document: Type in a short description of what the action should be
3 -
That is why I would suggest you use Actions. because you can have a different status on each action. And it is designed to work in tandem with the prospect module. They are linked, as is the gift module. So in Actions you could record each state and the status at that time. Have you read Bill Connor's book "Fundraising with the Raiser's Edge"? He has great insight into how to work with these tools.Pete Hall:
Hi there,
I'm working on a project to tidy up our major gift pipeline recording / reporting and was wondering how other organisations go about their pipeline recording?
We have the Prospect module and record the current pipeline stage under 'Prospect status'. Does anyone know whether it's possible to obtain / view a history of historic 'Prospect statuses'? I've been told not by my colleagues although this seems surprising to me as I'd have thought it'd be pretty key information for a lot of organisations.
Because of the apparent lack of a 'Prospect Status' history we also record our pipeline stages in attributes so that we can keep a history. This has inevitably led to discrpenacies between the current pipeline stage in 'Prospect Status' and the most recent 'Pipeline' attribute. Users dislike it as it means they have another thing to think about. I've been told we still record the current pipeline under 'Prospect Status' as it's not always obvious which is the current pipeline stage when looking at a record with a large number of attributes and also because the most important major gift information is held within the Prospect module.
I'd be interested to hear what others do to enable them to keep a history of their pipeline stages.
Many thanks in advance for any responses.
Pete
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Lauren Burgess:
With regards to dates and Overall Prospect Status, this info isn't visible on the front end in RE, but it is apparently in the data warehouse, if you have one. One of our Systems Team members found this when looking into some reporting options for us. It does show a date for whenever the Overall Prospect Status is changed. We haven't implemented any reports yet using this data, but it is there. Unless you are a Systems person/Report designer, however, it will require their help to build a report. None of the canned RE reports seem to have it.
LaurenCan you tell me more about this data warehouse? I too have been asked to report on the status pipeline, and though the date changed is recorded in NXT, and can't find it in RE. Blackbaud!
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Christine Cooke:
That is why I would suggest you use Actions. because you can have a different status on each action. And it is designed to work in tandem with the prospect module. They are linked, as is the gift module. So in Actions you could record each state and the status at that time. Have you read Bill Connor's book "Fundraising with the Raiser's Edge"? He has great insight into how to work with these tools.Pete Hall:
Hi there,
I'm working on a project to tidy up our major gift pipeline recording / reporting and was wondering how other organisations go about their pipeline recording?
We have the Prospect module and record the current pipeline stage under 'Prospect status'. Does anyone know whether it's possible to obtain / view a history of historic 'Prospect statuses'? I've been told not by my colleagues although this seems surprising to me as I'd have thought it'd be pretty key information for a lot of organisations.
Because of the apparent lack of a 'Prospect Status' history we also record our pipeline stages in attributes so that we can keep a history. This has inevitably led to discrpenacies between the current pipeline stage in 'Prospect Status' and the most recent 'Pipeline' attribute. Users dislike it as it means they have another thing to think about. I've been told we still record the current pipeline under 'Prospect Status' as it's not always obvious which is the current pipeline stage when looking at a record with a large number of attributes and also because the most important major gift information is held within the Prospect module.
I'd be interested to hear what others do to enable them to keep a history of their pipeline stages.
Many thanks in advance for any responses.
Pete
Actions would make sense, however NXT now records these prospect status date changes with a date. The frustrating part is that the date is not accessible on the RE side.
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I agree -- the Prospect Status would be Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 and then the Action Status is where they currently fall in the pipeline 1-Discovery, 2-Cultivation, 3-Solicitation, 4-Stewardship, 8-Revisit (at a later time), 9-Drop (altogether)Pete Hall:
I'm not sure whether it's just me, but I couldn't see the original replies I received to this topic when it was posed on the old RE forum. In case it's the same for everyone, I'll post the responses below as they might be of interest:
23rd Feb 2015 Nicole S
Is it possible that instead of an attribute you could use an action?
24th Feb 2015 Pete Hall
Hi Nicole,Thank you for your reply. I had a bit of an explore around the forum and it does seem like quite a few organisations use actions rather than attributes. It seems the advantage of this is that you can:
- associate an action with a solicitor
- set reminders / future actions
- mark actions as complete (so easier to highlight the current pipeline stage)
- create action tracks
- record more comprehensive notes against the pipeline stage
If other organisations record pipeline stages / moves management in actions could anyone let me know how they use the classification and prospect status on the (optional module) prospect tab? I don't want us to be recording the same information in two places, although I did see somewhere that someone said they'd done a customisation that automatically updated actions when they changed the prospect status (I guess using VBA?).
If we did decide to move our pipeline stages from attributes to actions, does anyone have an idea of how large a project this would be (within RE)? Is it a relatively simple global update / delete or is it a lot more complicated than that? As you might be able to tell, I'm pretty new to RE!
Many thanks in advance
Pete
24th Feb 2015 Christine Cook
yes you are on the right track with using Actions not Attributes for moves management, for all the reasons you listed. And -- since you mention having the Prospect Module, yes Actions and Gift are linked to the Prospect Module. So if you change something in Actions or Gifts it will update on the linked Proposal in the Prospect Tab.
If you need to move all a pile of info from Attributes to Actions. The best thing would most likely be to export the info from Attributres, reformat and rename whatever fields need attention and then import that info back into RE in Actions. Then you can remove it from Attributes.
One thing you might survey -- at some point some folks may have also entered some moves management items into Notes. If so, then that should be moved to Actions also.
26th Feb 2015 Pete Hall
Hi Christine,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. That's really helpful information. I'm definitely leaning towards moving our moves management tracking from attributes to actions.
Does anyone who records moves management through actions have any advice on whether it is necessary to also fill in the Prospect Status field with the current pipeline stage? If so, what processes do you use to ensure the current pipeline stage matches between the action and the Prospect Status?
Many thanks
Pete
26th Feb 2015 Christine Cook
Pete -I have seen the Prospect Status used as an additional Status field that gives slightly different info that the Action Status. I meant to include in your original ask and got distracted. I have experienced this sort of structure or very similar at a couple different orgs.
Examples:
The Action Statuses would: 1-Discovery, 2-Cultivation, 3-Solicitation, 4-Stewardship, 8-Revisit (postpone until another period of time, a month/year etc), 9-Drop (action/ask/cultivation is off the table for this constituent)
There can be multiple actions with any of these statuses in Actions.
Prospect Status would similar but would be more long term: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, 8-Revisit, 9-Drop.
The Tiers would be based on a combo of wealth screen matrix of likelihood and capacity, and inclination along with consideration for their giving history at your organization.
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I am interested in your definitions and if you have current policy and procedures on this would be very helpful to me. I am currently working on a proposed structure for our organization. Thank you in advance. -- SusanMilly Whittington:
We've been working on a 'moves management' system in RE for the past few years. Because we have four foundations in one database, the process took awhile to get everyone using the Proposals in the same manner. We rarely use the Prospect Status because there is only one and that prospect can be at a different stage for each foundation. Instead, we create proposals for each major gift potential 'ask'.
All actions for the 'ask' are connected to that specific proposal and our action types are the steps in the 'moves management' cycle (Identification, Qualification Research, Discovery Fundraiser, Cultivation, Solicitation, Closure and Stewardship). So when they add an action, they choose the specific stage in the cycle and, with a bit of work, we can track when the prospect moved from one stage to the next.
We've been able to use Query and Export and are now working on some Crystal Reports to track our proposals.
Would be glad to share our Prospect Cycle and how the fields in RE have been defined, if interested.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
Milly
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I don't really have a lot more information on the data warehouse since I don't have access to it - only our Systems Team does. I don't know if we pay extra for it, but Blackbaud is involved because there were some fields missing from the data warehouse our Systems Team needed for a custom report and had to wait for someone at BB to add the field to the warehouse before they could continue. Again, I'd check with whoever spearheads your Systems group/RE management at your organization to see if they know more.
Lauren
Lauren Burgess:
With regards to dates and Overall Prospect Status, this info isn't visible on the front end in RE, but it is apparently in the data warehouse, if you have one. One of our Systems Team members found this when looking into some reporting options for us. It does show a date for whenever the Overall Prospect Status is changed. We haven't implemented any reports yet using this data, but it is there. Unless you are a Systems person/Report designer, however, it will require their help to build a report. None of the canned RE reports seem to have it.
LaurenCan you tell me more about this data warehouse? I too have been asked to report on the status pipeline, and though the date changed is recorded in NXT, and can't find it in RE. Blackbaud!
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