Raiser's Edge Best Practices Manual?

Eileen Bartlett 2

The organization that I work with does not have a Procedures Manual for Raiser's Edge, I am wondering if someone is willing to share their manual so I am not starting from scratch. Thanks!

Eileen

Sunshine Reinken Watson

I would like to see more examples as well, though I have found some on the internet through a google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=raiser%27s+edge+best+practices&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=raiser%27s+edge+manual+.pdf+

Christine Cooke 2

Are you referring to use instructions or institutional procedures for your particular organization?

 

There are some other postings on what content folks include in their procedures and protocols manual.

Eileen Bartlett 2

Hi Christine,


I am looking for examples of institutional procedures manual for my organization, so I am not starting from scratch. If you have seem them on here where did you find them?


Thanks,

Eileen

Karen Stuhlfeier

I finally decided that I needed to write my own because I found that other manuals for other organizations just had too many things in them that didn't pertain to our organization and they just confused people. 


Instead of trying to write one definitive manual, I save the documents in our department's shared folder. I can then update and add to them when I get a chance. I can also print one of the documents when I want to train someone on a specific task like adding a new constituent or entering a gift batch.


It's time consuming to do, but seems to work well. 


 

Angela Bertrand 2

I also created a manual from scratch - and have both at this position and my previous. I create it on our department shared drive, with a folder for each 'chapter' and the policies and procedures each under each chapter. I've attached our table of contents -- you can see there are lots of policies and procedures in there, so if there are any in particular you're interested in, just let me know and I can share those.


To create it, I created 2 templates (one for policies, one for procedures) and a microsoft word style sheet. I define policies as the "what" and the procedures as the "how" and the whole thing is always a work in progress. I add things as I think of them, pass of parts of my job, or am requested to make updates. 


I know in a training I went to Blackbaud mentioned they have a template for updating to make your own... but I found one long document much too intimidating to work with. I can probably find it if you're interested though. 

Megan Shackle

I also created one from scratch, but used this as a template/example: https://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/client/rdcprospectmanual.pdf 

I also tried to make my version more visually appealing and easy to read. I used more screen shots and bolded key actionable words and phrases so that a step-by-step process can be followed by singling out those key words. I keep it as a single PDF on the shared drive. Each user also has a printed copy in a 3-ring binder. As changes are needed, I update the Word document, or sometimes just slap post-its on my binder version until I make the next round of edits. Once I feel there have been enough changes to justify printing new copies, I print them and swap them out in each person's 3-ring binder.

Eileen Bartlett 2

Angela Bertrand:

I also created a manual from scratch - and have both at this position and my previous. I create it on our department shared drive, with a folder for each 'chapter' and the policies and procedures each under each chapter. I've attached our table of contents -- you can see there are lots of policies and procedures in there, so if there are any in particular you're interested in, just let me know and I can share those.


To create it, I created 2 templates (one for policies, one for procedures) and a microsoft word style sheet. I define policies as the "what" and the procedures as the "how" and the whole thing is always a work in progress. I add things as I think of them, pass of parts of my job, or am requested to make updates. 


I know in a training I went to Blackbaud mentioned they have a template for updating to make your own... but I found one long document much too intimidating to work with. I can probably find it if you're interested though. 

Hi Angela, thank you for your response, I owuld be interested in seeing what Blackbaud had for a template, just to give me ideas as how best to put this together. I appreciate your help.


Eileen