holiday card

Jesse Calagna

I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestion for where to put the fact that certain constituents got a holiday card from our organziation.  We do not expect money to be donated as a result, so maybe appeal wouldn't be ideal.  Any suggestions?

JoAnn Strommen

I would put it as an Action > Mailing, type Holiday Card

Ryan Hyde

Some purely information mailings get recorded as actions, but the action screen can get pretty crowded this way. If someone were to send in a donation and you knew it came because of this holiday card, how would you record that? If you would do so by creating an appeal, then just apply that appeal to your entire mailing list. I think that would be the most efficient way to record this sort of thing.

Gina Gerhard

So I'm going to push back a bit on this one and probably stir things up ....



If this is strictly informational, I guess I'd ask is it really important to record at all on the constituent's record?  If it's not driving any actions what is the actual value of this information?  I think as data people we tend to want to record every single event - that's logical right?  But are we just adding data for data's sake?  



Are some mailings (like holiday card, annual report) just really part of our overall marketing plan?  If the few times you might get a question about if Mr. Jones got it, you can just look at the mailing list file?

Shalena Stelzig

We track ours in appeals

Aldera Chisholm

I have an appeal for stewardship mailings. Anytime a gift comes in as a result of xmas card and similar, it goes to that appeal.  



We count xmas cards and similar mailings into actions, mostly because we have donor touchpoints as a measurable for our staff, and actions make it easy to do so.



I think the real question is: what will you want to use the information for? Is it just so you know who got what? Or is it something you will need to pull and measure later? I find that asking myself that question first helps me determine where I should put it in the database.

 

Karen Stuhlfeier

I agree with Gina that you have to think about if what you're adding is really meaningful. It it is, I use an action with the action type of stewardship. An appeal is only used when we are asking for a donation.

Jen Claudy

We assign an Appeal for all mass-mailings.  Even if there is no ask.  I have an Appeal Category of "Tracking - No Ask" for this purpose.  This way, I don't ever have to go back and find the list used for the mail merge, it's in RE, and (theoretically) anyone with RE access can easily find whether someone got (or was sent) a mailing.



We reserve Actions for more personalized touches.  Although, that could fit Holiday Cards, depending on how you do them at your org.  Here, they are on Appeal, and the Package and Comment fields indicate why they are on the list and who signed the card...mostly our CEO and Program Directors (who do not work in RE).  This allows us to pull next year's draft list from RE using that Appeal...and then staff can edit their portion of the list as needed.



It does come down to how you think you might use the information in the future.  Personally, if I can easily Import or Globally Add the data, then I usually do.  At the very least, take a clean copy of your mailing list, with Constituent IDs, and save that to the Media Tab of a Dummy Record.  This way, you'll have a record of who received the mailing and it will be in RE, not just floating around on your org's network.  (And if you're on NXT, someday--soon, I hope--you'll be able to put Attachments on an Appeal Record instead of a Dummy Constituent Record.)



I even put in Appeal Tags for those who get pulled from a mailing, with the reason noted on the Appeal and a Package of DNM (Do Not Mail).  This has saved me on numerous occasions when someone asks, "Did so-and-so get this mailing?" and when I say, "No." the next question is usually, "Why not?" with or probably shortly followed by a panicked, "Is the whole list wrong, then?  Because so-and-so should have been on there!"  Also, staff here have a habit (not a good one, in my opinion) of reusing lists...actual lists, not just the criteria.  This way, I have a complete record of who met the original list's criteria ...so on the occasions that I win part of the battle and we review the list closely, I can also include who was pulled from the list, in case they need to go back on (i.e. "solicit once a year in Spring" is pulled for the Fall mailing, but should be including in the Spring mailing).