Tracking donors who are matching gifts to a Direct Mail appeal

Aldera Chisholm 2

Hi folks, would love to hear how you track donors who make a gift which is being used as a Matching Campaign for a direct mail appeal. IE “Generous donors x, y and z will be matching your gifts up to $50,000”. I've played with a few scenarios, but I just want to be easily able to pull a list that answers “Who are the donors who have committed to a matching gift for this campaign, how much is each gift, and are they anonymous/named.”

We cannot use the appeal for this tracking. Historically, the org did this using an Attribute.

Dariel Dixon 2

I'm not sure I'm following this @Aldera Chisholm. So this is for money that is going to be used for a match for something else, or for funds that already have a match? You stated that appeal is unavailable, but this seems like a segmented mailing. Perhaps package, but I don't know how viable it will be as they are tied to appeals.

When you say attribute, are you referring to a gift attribute or a constituent attribute? I'd think gift, and perhaps that is the best option since appeal is not available.

JoAnn Strommen

@Aldera Chisholm Ditto @Dariel's comment. Package or gift attribute.

Throwing out one more thought. You said appeal is not an option. Is that because this is part of a larger appeal? If so and since appeal does seem to be the best option for recording this, can you use a similar appeal? If primary appeal is “Project ABC” could you use “Project ABC - Match”? It would mean including both appeals when reporting on primary appeal. Just a thought - you'd need to consider the changes it would mean for reporting.

If not, package would work similarly. Just check to see you would have needed report options.

Aldera Chisholm 2

@JoAnn Strommen Yes, that would be my ideal way to do it. My org has a system of appeals where if I attribute a “Major Gift” to an “Annual Appeal” it throws off their budgeting. (I don't like it, but that's a long-game battle we are working on.) Which is why I can't use anything on the appeal level.

Aldera Chisholm 2

@Dariel Dixon Essentially it's a gift originating from earlier in the year and it's now being used to drive a different appeal. It's a convoluted set up, absolutely. Looking back, they have sometimes tracked on Constituent attribute, sometimes on gift attribute, and sometimes just on the reference line on the gift. So, I'm trying to find a clean system to institute and hopefully then clean up the past ones while I'm at it.

Dariel Dixon 2

@Aldera Chisholm If these are gifts that have already been received, then I don't think it matters whether it's an attribute (of any kind) or a package, just as long as you make a decision and are consistent. This does seem like a logistical disaster, but I think almost all solutions are good as you can easily query any of them. Attributes have the benefit of easy reporting as you and include or exclude them without much problem.