Giving Tuesday and other Mailings vs Solicitor

Denise Schlake 2

My question is that say some Gift Officers solicit gifts for Giving Tools Day- Do you add both the appeal and the solicitor as soliciting the gift or do you do either one or the other?

Another question, we just sent a mailing out and the person sent in a donation through the appeal envelope- do you code that as through the appeal? A gift officer is like well I emailed them a few weeks ago so I should get credit? Didn't have a conversation with them just emailed to say what is going on at the school and introducing themselves.

Appreciate any thoughts on these topics.

JoAnn Strommen

@Denise Schlake We have encountered the same issue. For Giving Day or where there is an appeal response device, we code that as the appeal. If they have an assigned solicitor, we let that field populate as well.

We have an appeal code of “Dev Officer Solicitation." If we have coded it for the mailing or some other appeal and they claim it because they have been working with/talking to donor, we will change appeal if asked. They are already listed as solicitor on the gift. I figure they can fight it out among the development team and with the CEO when it comes to metrics. As db persons only so much we know about gift origination. Dev staff should be honest enough not to claim credit when no credit is due.

Your example of an email vs letter is a tougher call.

Dariel Dixon 2

@Denise Schlake As usual, I'm in agreement with @JoAnn Strommen. If the solicitor is assigned to the constituent, then we would let it stay if it populates. There's no reason why you can't have an appeal and a solicitor get credit, as both do part of the work of fundraising. I don't see any reason why a gift officer wouldn't get credit for gifts made by constituents in their portfolio. Obviously, this depends on your gift and appeal structure, but I credit any gift with a reply device to that appeal. Since solicitor credit is housed in a completely different way, it should be fine.

Karen Diener 2

@Denise Schlake I'm in agreement with both responses, but want to point out what I think is an important distinction, and the way I instruct organizations to use RE whenever possible. The idea is to prevent data conflicts, and use fields as designed.

To put that in practice: If you want to know how much was raised for a certain appeal, all gifts need to have that appeal. It makes it easy to code while gifts are being entered, and makes it easy to report. Out of all the gifts entered, if SOME of them were solicited by gift officers, then they should be the solicitor on the gift. I would not change the appeal code, because you now lose the ability to report on how much the appeal raised.

I do think an appeal code such as “personal solicitation” is appropriate for some gifts, but those are typically major gift solicitations and not part of mass mail or email solicitations.

Dariel Dixon 2

@Denise Schlake I know it's just a typo, but “Giving Tools Day” has been living in my head ever since you said it. It makes me laugh every time I read it. Thank you so much for this inadvertent laugh.