Staff to gift ratio

Marguerite Gravois

Does anyone have a general recommendation of the number of RE gift data entry personnel (or the number of hours) needed to completely process gifts received daily?  (A staff to gift ratio).  What guidelines/deadlines do you use to develop realistic expectations of the stages of gift processing from receipt/entry/posting/acknowledgement?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you!
Marguerite


 

JoAnn Strommen

There may be some numbers out there. IMO it would be hard to judge as how much time can very from gift to gift.


To enter a pledge payment gift in batch where constituent is in RE and I just click to apply it to a pledge takes just seconds.  If I need to review/add/change address/phone/spouse/constituent code/attribute info it adds more time.  If I need to research what appeal or fund to use it adds more time.


If the record is not in RE and I have to create a constituent record and enter all their info that greatly increases the time per gift.


Are the acknowledgements all set. Do letters require review or any manual ajustments? Am I just printing letters? Printing envelopes? Signing?


All those factors can change a number processed in a day from hundreds to thousands.

Joanne Felci 2

JoAnn Strommen:

There may be some numbers out there. IMO it would be hard to judge as how much time can very from gift to gift.


To enter a pledge payment gift in batch where constituent is in RE and I just click to apply it to a pledge takes just seconds.  If I need to review/add/change address/phone/spouse/constituent code/attribute info it adds more time.  If I need to research what appeal or fund to use it adds more time.


If the record is not in RE and I have to create a constituent record and enter all their info that greatly increases the time per gift.


Are the acknowledgements all set. Do letters require review or any manual ajustments? Am I just printing letters? Printing envelopes? Signing?


All those factors can change a number processed in a day from hundreds to thousands.

per usual - SO many great points!


I totally agree with JoAnn, as hard as it is to accept there are so many variables. 


If you did want to figure out an average it would depend on the make up of your gifts, if they are mostly straightforward it might be a minute per gifts, but if there are a bunch of exceptions/new donors, etc. it would be longer.


Good luck!

Lawrence Rush

There are so many variables that it's difficult to give any concrete answers. You have to play with various schedules and see what works best for your organization. For mailed in gifts, our donation cycle takes approximately 48 hours and one person is plenty to deal with our volume of donations. Online donations are processed, committed, and reconciled much faster and at times those batches may be closed daily. A quicker schedule would be less efficient as our gift processor is also assigned various other responsibilities. This schedule changes based on season as well. Donation volume increases dramatically in late September through November. 

Angie Stumpo

Because there are so many variables, I would say if you are not getting your gifts turned around in a reasonable amount of time (48 hours is ideal) then it may be time to add someone part time or full time to help.

Marguerite Gravois

Angie Stumpo:

Because there are so many variables, I would say if you are not getting your gifts turned around in a reasonable amount of time (48 hours is ideal) then it may be time to add someone part time or full time to help.

Thank you all so much for your input!