Christmas Cards

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We want to track Christmas cards - I know how to track the Christmas cards we send (mailing) but wondering how folks track cards received in RE.  I could create a fund called Christmas card and the card is a "gift" so that I could query in that manner.  I hesitate to use attributes because cards may be sent in one year and not another.  Any other ideas?  

Sorry if this is an old topic - nothing seemed to pop up in Community.
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  • Margaret Argyelan:

    We want to track Christmas cards - I know how to track the Christmas cards we send (mailing) but wondering how folks track cards received in RE.  I could create a fund called Christmas card and the card is a "gift" so that I could query in that manner.  I hesitate to use attributes because cards may be sent in one year and not another.  Any other ideas?  

    Sorry if this is an old topic - nothing seemed to pop up in Community.

    One option would be to create an appeal for the Christmas cards. I hesitate to use a fund, because that would create havoc when reporting to our Finance office. Since most donors do not enclose an appeal card/envelope in their Christmas card, it makes sense to me to be able to pull an appeal report to show how many gifts came inside of Christmas cards.

  • Margaret Argyelan:

    We want to track Christmas cards - I know how to track the Christmas cards we send (mailing) but wondering how folks track cards received in RE.  I could create a fund called Christmas card and the card is a "gift" so that I could query in that manner.  I hesitate to use attributes because cards may be sent in one year and not another.  Any other ideas?  

    Sorry if this is an old topic - nothing seemed to pop up in Community.

    I suggest tracking them as an Action.  That way if they send them annually and stop and start you will see the history.
  • Margaret Argyelan:

    We want to track Christmas cards - I know how to track the Christmas cards we send (mailing) but wondering how folks track cards received in RE.  I could create a fund called Christmas card and the card is a "gift" so that I could query in that manner.  I hesitate to use attributes because cards may be sent in one year and not another.  Any other ideas?  

    Sorry if this is an old topic - nothing seemed to pop up in Community.

    Are you trying to specifically count the number of cards received in response to those you have sent?  

    What I would recommend is an action indicating Christmas Card sent on X date. Then when you receive a card from that constituent, add an attribute to the action which reads received and the date received.


    You could then run a query at years end to see how many card were sent & how many card were sent / received.

  • Just brainstorming here.  Actions, of course, are an option but they can get a little bit bulky and may not mean much to an MGO years later unless the action includes more details about the donor.  Since you already send Christmas Cards what if you track the ones you receive back as a response to that appeal?
  • Margaret Argyelan:

    We want to track Christmas cards - I know how to track the Christmas cards we send (mailing) but wondering how folks track cards received in RE.  I could create a fund called Christmas card and the card is a "gift" so that I could query in that manner.  I hesitate to use attributes because cards may be sent in one year and not another.  Any other ideas?  

    Sorry if this is an old topic - nothing seemed to pop up in Community.

    I'm on the side of LaDonna, we track them as appeals with various packages assigned; our mailhouse does the segmentations.  Then when a gift comes in the Performance Analysis reports work great!

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