Tributes

Margaret Wagstaff 2

Hi,


I work at an organization that has a very high volume of tribute gifts.  We have and use the tribute module.  Many of the memorials we receive do not have anyone to notify and receive only one gift.  This has a creating a ton of new records.  Does anyone have the tribute module and does not create tribute records for all tributes?  I would love to hear your experience.


Thank you,

Margaret Wagstaff

KaLeigh Lee

Margaret Wagstaff:

Hi,


I work at an organization that has a very high volume of tribute gifts.  We have and use the tribute module.  Many of the memorials we receive do not have anyone to notify and receive only one gift.  This has a creating a ton of new records.  Does anyone have the tribute module and does not create tribute records for all tributes?  I would love to hear your experience.


Thank you,

Margaret Wagstaff

Hi Margaret!


We use the Tribute module quite often as well. We DO make records for each tribute, but I've thought about what you've posted here. Maybe you can just put in the Reference field (under the gift) who the donation is for? You could use "Memorial" as the appeal so you can query/report that way. It really depends on how you use the information collected from the Tribute module.


I'd love hear your thoughts on this too, Margaret. It could be mutual benefit.


 

Jen Claudy

For tribute gifts without actual names (i.e. "My Mother" or "the staff at ABC company"), you could use a single dummy record and put multiple Tribute Records on that one Constituent Record.  You could do the same for other Tributes, combine them all onto a dummy constituent record, if you don't need the name and address data in separate fields.  Or you could put that information on Relationship Records to that dummy constituent.


Depending on how you get your data into RE, you can set up a Query to look for these Constituent Records that only contain a little bit of data related to a Tribute and merge them into the dummy record, moving only the Tribute tab.

Margaret Wagstaff 2

KaLeigh Hurley:

Margaret Wagstaff:

Hi,


I work at an organization that has a very high volume of tribute gifts.  We have and use the tribute module.  Many of the memorials we receive do not have anyone to notify and receive only one gift.  This has a creating a ton of new records.  Does anyone have the tribute module and does not create tribute records for all tributes?  I would love to hear your experience.


Thank you,

Margaret Wagstaff

Hi Margaret!


We use the Tribute module quite often as well. We DO make records for each tribute, but I've thought about what you've posted here. Maybe you can just put in the Reference field (under the gift) who the donation is for? You could use "Memorial" as the appeal so you can query/report that way. It really depends on how you use the information collected from the Tribute module.


I'd love hear your thoughts on this too, Margaret. It could be mutual benefit.


 

 

Thanks for your comment!

 

We have so many tribute records that have one gift in them and no one to send an acknowledgment to, it makes me wonder if we should be creating all these new records.  However, by not creating tribute records I'm worried about reporting and keeping track of tributes.  It's nice to have statistical information on how many tribute gifts we receive in a year.  So, I really want to make sure that we consider everything before making any changes.

 

Thanks,

Margaret

Margaret Wagstaff 2

Jen Claudy:

For tribute gifts without actual names (i.e. "My Mother" or "the staff at ABC company"), you could use a single dummy record and put multiple Tribute Records on that one Constituent Record.  You could do the same for other Tributes, combine them all onto a dummy constituent record, if you don't need the name and address data in separate fields.  Or you could put that information on Relationship Records to that dummy constituent.


Depending on how you get your data into RE, you can set up a Query to look for these Constituent Records that only contain a little bit of data related to a Tribute and merge them into the dummy record, moving only the Tribute tab.

Thanks Jen,  I know  exactly what you are talking about.  I'd have to try it and see what it would look like.  If we put someone in the dummy record and then it turned out we received several tributes, we would then want to make them an actual constituent.  So, many things to think about.  

Thanks,

Margaret


 

Debra Holcomb

Have you considered just adding the tribute to the donor's record in the honoree's name?  We have the tribute module and this has worked well for us.  Of course, there are still times when an tributee needs his/her own record, but as you point out, many times it's a one time gift or all the gifts are from the same donor. We've found in those cases the record does not need to be its own constituent, and if later it does, you can simply elevate it.   


Depending on your needs, you might need to set up some additional practices such as creating a new add/sal type, creating a relationship and relationship type, updating acknowledgement letter export data, adding an alias, or including a reference to make it work for you. 

 

Karen Stuhlfeier

 I concur with Jen. We have two records to put the miscellaneous tributes in - one for memorial gifts and one for honor gifts. We make a new tribute in the record  for each gift and put the tribute information in the description. For all tribute gifts we put exactly how the gift should be worded in our annual report in the description of the tribute record. That makes putting the report together very easy. 

Margaret Wagstaff 2

Debra Holcomb:

Have you considered just adding the tribute to the donor's record in the honoree's name?  We have the tribute module and this has worked well for us.  Of course, there are still times when an tributee needs his/her own record, but as you point out, many times it's a one time gift or all the gifts are from the same donor. We've found in those cases the record does not need to be its own constituent, and if later it does, you can simply elevate it.   


Depending on your needs, you might need to set up some additional practices such as creating a new add/sal type, creating a relationship and relationship type, updating acknowledgement letter export data, adding an alias, or including a reference to make it work for you. 

 

Hi Debra,

Thanks for responding!  Where are you putting the tributes name in the donors record?  I'd be interested in some details.


Thanks,

Margaret

Debra Holcomb

Hi Debra,

Thanks for responding!  Where are you putting the tributes name in the donors record?  I'd be interested in some details.

 

Hi Margaret,

We create the tribute on the donor's constituent record, and we record the tributee's name in the Tribute Description.  We'll add a non-constituent relationship with the tributee on the Relationship tab if one doesn't exist already.  We merge the tributee description into the donor acknowledgment letter. Since we recognize memorial gifts on our honor wall when the cumulative giving reaches a specific dollar amount, we also have an add/sal specifically for this purpose named "Memorial Listing".  The only bump I've run into is that you can't rely on the Sort Key to list your tributes in alphabetical order because the tributee's last name and the donor's last name may be different.  If you felt strongly you could also create a tributee alias type, but we haven't found that necessary.  When a tributee starts receiving gifts from multiple donors, we elevate the tributee relationship to a constituent record so all gifts received can be more easily viewed.  Feel from to PM if you need more details. 

Debra