Actions vs Appeals

Kelsey George · May 2016

At our organization, we have previously stored email updates (sent by a third-party vendor) under the Actions tab. However, we're reconsidering whether they should be stored under the Appeals tab instead, as we can now track gifts in response to e-updates thanks to Google Analytics. This would enable us to update the Gift Appeal and have it appear under the "Total Given" column on the Appeals tab. In addition, it would be easier for our management staff to scroll through less actions, albeit more important (i.e. Personal Visit with Major Donor) rather than having to scroll through numerous e-updates. What are best practices and recommendations for storing email updates? Benefits vs drawbacks?

Thanks!

Joanne Felci 2 · May 2016

Hi Kelsey,

At my prior organization we went through the same transistion - from Actions to Appeals for email updates/reports to donors, etc.

I found a few advantages to putting this information in Appeals as opposed to Actions:

1. cleaned up Actions tab for gift officers (as you already pointed out)

2. was much easier to do queries based on appeal

3. was able to exclude based on appeal more easily then an action

Now depending on how many email updates or other things get sent your Appeal tab might get filled up but I found that I was really the only one looking at that tab so it did not matter

Good luck!

Joanne

Jen Claudy · May 2016

Just to toss this out there...OLX will push email message data to RE and when you do this, it puts the data in as an Appeal. There are improvements needed (always room for more/better functionality!) but if you ever decide to move to OLX (or NXT, which comes with OLX, I think...we have both, but I'm not sure if OLX is an additional module or not), your data will already be moved.

Kelsey George · May 2016

Thanks so much Joanne, that's very helpful!

Do you use the Giving Score at your organization? Did moving the e-updates from Actions to Appeals affect this in a negative/positive way?

Kelsey

Kelsey George · May 2016

Jen Claudy:

Just to toss this out there...OLX will push email message data to RE and when you do this, it puts the data in as an Appeal. There are improvements needed (always room for more/better functionality!) but if you ever decide to move to OLX (or NXT, which comes with OLX, I think...we have both, but I'm not sure if OLX is an additional module or not), your data will already be moved.

Thanks Jen, good to know! We considered NXT but haven't transitioned yet due to costs and budgets

Actions vs Appeals

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