How to Associate a Specific Mail Out with Constituents Receiving Them

Deborah Johnson

We have recently emailed a brochure to selected Constituents and I have been asked to tag those Constituents in Raiser's Edge with the type of brochure we sent so that we don't send the same brochure to that recipient in future mail outs.  I had created a query to select any Constituent who contributed within the last 2 years, and the results were exported to Excel to create a mailing list.


I would like to know how others might identify the type of mail out that has been sent to their constituents and the process you use to do this.  Is there a particular field that you use to identify which mail out was sent?

Thanks for your ideas and input, it is greatly appreciated.

 

Mark Guncheon 2

We use appeals which give us a record of those who were sent the mailing and also any gifts that came in due to the appeal.

Deborah Johnson

Mark Guncheon:

We use appeals which give us a record of those who were sent the mailing and also any gifts that came in due to the appeal.

Hi Mark,

Could you explain your process a little further please?  Do you add the appeal to an Excel spreadsheet that you use for mailing to a constituent or can the appeal be added to the Constituent's account  in RE without a gift associated with it?  I am still in the process of learning RE and don't have any experience with mailings from RE.

Mark Guncheon 2

The process is first to produce your mail list. Once it goes out for mailing, I globally add an appeal to constituents on that list. All of my lists feature a column with the constituent ID so that I can create a query (or use the one I created for the export I used to pull the list) and easily add that appeal. Then, when gifts start pouring in (hopefully,) our gift processor uses that appeal on the gift record. The amount of that gift is automatically add to the "Total given" column on the constituent's appeal tab:




Though this appeal did not use a package, we often use packages for our mailings. These typically show the different ways we reached out to constituents: mail, email, personal or they may show the different "asks" we mailed: $25 ask, $100 ask, $250 ask, $500 ask, #1,000 ask. We love using packages.


Plus the comments section in the appeal is useful too,


Hope this helps.

Deborah Johnson

Thanks Mark, that explanation helps.  I had thought about using package, but wasn't sure if that would be the best route to take.  I appreciate the detail provided and will explore this further.

Christine Cooke 2

Mark Guncheon's suggestion is exactly what I would have suggested.  But if you feel that that is not "it" for you, another alternative I have seen utilized is to add it as an Action.

Deborah Johnson

Hi Christine,

Thanks for your input.  We converted to Raiser's Edge one year ago and are trying to standardize and qualify identifiers for ease in access of our data.  I've used 'Package' with Appeals only once, and it was to identify the online giving source for gifts received for a specific event.  Can I assign a Package and Appeal to a constituent who hasn't given a current gift, but was "asked" through a  mail out?  If I am just doing the mail out, would I "tag" the constituent by entering it in the Appeal tab to show they were asked?  It seems there are many options, but then pulling information out of the database might get tricky as well.  What are your thoughts?

Elizabeth Johnson

Hi Deborah,


As Christine Cooke bCREPro‍, also agreed with Mark Guncheon‍, I do as well. To answer your question to Christine, absolutely! All constituent records allow for appeals to be added regardless of their giving history. It helps your gift entry person identify what most recent appeal was likely responsible for the gift and that works so much smoother if the appeal/package is entered on the gift at the time of entry rather than going back and identifying it later. Whoever does your analysis at your organization will thank you for it!


Best,

Elizabeth

Deborah Johnson

Thank you Elizabeth!

Tatyana Leifman

As others noted, we too add the appeals and packages to all the records that were mailed at the time of mailing, before the gifts start coming in.  Obviously, not every donor responds to the mailing but, as already mentioned, sometimes they may respond to an appeal from a couple of years ago.  If the mailing list includes the RE Ids, it is a very simple import to add the appeals and packages.