Alumni Chapter Membership & Giving Levels Tracking/Placement

Tammie Cach Abdu

Hi everyone!

We are 2 weeks out after "GO LIVE!" and have discovered/realized that our Giving level membership codes are not anywhere in the new database.  We don't have the Membership module, so we can rule that out from the start. We were wondering where everyone else is tracking this? Do you track them as a Relationship or on Attributes? We definitely need to have dates tied to the information, and something that can handle multiple entries of the same type. This also something we were wondering about for Alumni chapter members. Many of our chapters are do not collect dues for membership. Do you track them as an Educational relationship even though they are no longer enrolled? Or in attributes?


Thank you in advance!!

 

Peter Gulka 3

Tammie Cach Abdu:

Hi everyone!

We are 2 weeks out after "GO LIVE!" and have discovered/realized that our Giving level membership codes are not anywhere in the new database.  We don't have the Membership module, so we can rule that out from the start. We were wondering where everyone else is tracking this? Do you track them as a Relationship or on Attributes? We definitely need to have dates tied to the information, and something that can handle multiple entries of the same type. This also something we were wondering about for Alumni chapter members. Many of our chapters are do not collect dues for membership. Do you track them as an Educational relationship even though they are no longer enrolled? Or in attributes?


Thank you in advance!!

 

Giving levels always end up being a kind of grey area, depending on how you internally are defining "Membership" versus "Donor benefits" versus "Donor recognition". Memberships typically are explictly purchased at general admission orgs like zoos or science centers. If I give a donation, I don't typically get surpirsed one day to find a memebrship welcome package in my mailbox. 


You also have the added complexity of deciding if you want to track this information implcitly versus explicitly. For example, am I at a certain giving level because that specific piece of inforamtion is stored on my record in a single field, or am I at a certain giving level because my gift totals were calculated as of a certain date. Donoations are always happening, and so typically, giving levels are calcualted on the fly at significant milestones, such as the creation of an annual report or donor wall listing, where the names have to be organized. It really depends on how knowing someone's giving level at any given moment will affect the way you interact with them.


Thats a long winded way of saying "it depends". The only reason to store data in a system like RE is to get it out again. Until you ahve a clear idea on how and when you are going to get that data out, and how you are going to use it, its hard to make a recommendation for the best place and method to store it. 

Tammie Cach Abdu

Hi Peter!

Thank you for your answer. I'll clarify my question concerning the donor tracking.  As you stated, we assign giving levels  because the donor reached a specified level of giving within a given time period.  Generally this occurs when we do our annual report(as you said) and produce the donor honor roll. We also track based on consecutive years given, which is another way we recongize our donors.  These groups are then tapped when we do invitations for events, or specific mailings, etc.  


Does that better define our needs and perhaps change your answer from "depends" to "this is how to do it?"


Peter Gulka:

Tammie Cach Abdu:

Hi everyone!

We are 2 weeks out after "GO LIVE!" and have discovered/realized that our Giving level membership codes are not anywhere in the new database.  We don't have the Membership module, so we can rule that out from the start. We were wondering where everyone else is tracking this? Do you track them as a Relationship or on Attributes? We definitely need to have dates tied to the information, and something that can handle multiple entries of the same type. This also something we were wondering about for Alumni chapter members. Many of our chapters are do not collect dues for membership. Do you track them as an Educational relationship even though they are no longer enrolled? Or in attributes?


Thank you in advance!!

 

Giving levels always end up being a kind of grey area, depending on how you internally are defining "Membership" versus "Donor benefits" versus "Donor recognition". Memberships typically are explictly purchased at general admission orgs like zoos or science centers. If I give a donation, I don't typically get surpirsed one day to find a memebrship welcome package in my mailbox. 


You also have the added complexity of deciding if you want to track this information implcitly versus explicitly. For example, am I at a certain giving level because that specific piece of inforamtion is stored on my record in a single field, or am I at a certain giving level because my gift totals were calculated as of a certain date. Donoations are always happening, and so typically, giving levels are calcualted on the fly at significant milestones, such as the creation of an annual report or donor wall listing, where the names have to be organized. It really depends on how knowing someone's giving level at any given moment will affect the way you interact with them.


Thats a long winded way of saying "it depends". The only reason to store data in a system like RE is to get it out again. Until you ahve a clear idea on how and when you are going to get that data out, and how you are going to use it, its hard to make a recommendation for the best place and method to store it.