Minimum Gift Amount for Data Entry?

Debra Holcomb

Do you have a minimum gift amount to enter a one-time gift into your database?  Do you record gifts that are below that minimum?  How do you balance at the end of the month if not all gifts are entered?


We have a rock star team of two data entry assistants that enter 100,000 gifts per year from all channels.  We've been told we can't add staff, so I'm trying to find another way to address the volume of gift entry with the team size we have.  After looking at the data historically and the lifetime value of these donors, we are considering eliminating entering non-recurring gifts under $5.


If you've done this, how did it work?    

John Heizer

You could treat them as Anonymous (or, more accurately, "Unknown") donors and just enter a daily total amount.  I'd create a special record specifically for such donations.

Matthew Nareff

If you don't have all the gifts entered any reports that contain giving information will be incorrect.  You'd have to keep a manual sheet or something to add those totals to any reports.  One of the things I need to keep in mind based upon how we segment our appeals is non-donor for an acquisition piece vs. donors (whether by year, amount, etc.).  If you don't have a gift in someone's record it looks as if they're a new donor and you upset your constituent by essentially saying that you don't have all his/her information in RE.  I also don't know how you'd ever be able to reconcile with your finance department.  As many often say, if it's not in the database it doesn't exist.


I understand the problem with too much work and not enough staff but I would look to see if there are steps that can be removed.  For example, do you scan every check and also make a hard copy?  I'd just scan it and then you always can get a hard copy if needed.  May save a small amount of time for each gift but with 100,000 gifts each year it all adds up. 


Basically you're deciding which you have more time for, getting all those gifts in or spending time manually updating reports and lists, etc. each time you run something.

Shannon Doiron 2

We enter all gifts but only receipt gifts over $10.00.  We use "anonymous donor" so I am not clogging up  RE with constituents that I don't have contact data for.

 

J A Mariani

Every donor we have info for gets a record, regardless of gift amount.


Question: what happens if one of your non-recurring donors turns into a regular giver... You'll have at least one of their gifts missing that was possibly bundled in an Anonymous amount or entry.


Our anonymous records for when we truly do not know who the donor is, or where attendees gave cash donations at an event and it wasn't tracked who/how much.


 

Steven Cianciarulo

I can't begin to imagine the headache of reconciling with your accounting team, let alone getting good fundraising reports if you don't put every gift in the database. I'm anxious just thinking about it!

Debra Holcomb

I should have phrased my question as "Minimum Gift Amount for Constituent Record?"  Here's what we decided to do...


We've created a single constituent record just to record acquisition gifts under $5.  All of the gift information will be still be collected and imported so that we can still report on total giving, average gift size, and the success of appeals.  We are importing the name of the donor into the gift reference field so should we need to go back to one of these gifts for any reason, we should be able to find the scan relatively easily.  We just will not be spending our time creating new constituent records or entering and validating addresses for these new donors which are the slowest parts of gift entry for us.  


For what it's worth, we reviewed the data historically and found that those with first gifts under $5 received by mail do not convert to monthly giving, or make larger gifts or planned gifts.   


Thanks John Heizer‍ and Shannon Doiron‍ for the suggestions that helped us think through the best solution for us.