Recording Non-Solicitation Mailings - i.e. program contact with families

Amy Stubbings · November 2017

Hi all! I work at a nursing home, and we send 2 kinds of newsletters. One contains an envelope, and is mailed to donors, prospects, VIPs, and the community. This is tracked as an appeal, and is not a concern.

The other is a newsletter with no envelope containing information about programs and activities/construction updates here at the nursing home. It only goes to families (about 450) who have a loved one in our nursing home. It isn't a solicitation.

I think I would prefer to see it in Actions, as it's not an ask. It would also give a more accurate picture of appeals when reviewing the NXT Timeline for people. I'm not sure if that would be confusing to gift officers or not.

How do other people track mailings that aren't asks - Appeals or Actions? Thanks!

Elizabeth Johnson · November 2017

Hi Amy,

At my organization we would have that be an appeal. Even though 450 is a small group, it is still bulk in nature. I have a special appeal for Mail-Non event/solicitation mailing and I use the packages to track what it is and is often part of the package name. For our organization this boils down to our donor recognition report, our school magazine mailing, and advertisements to our alumni of a certain age about our summer programs. It is helpful for us to have it here. Eventhough it is not a direct solicitation - they sometimes still generate gifts and then we have something to attribute the gift to.

More personalized mailings do end up as actions but these are very generic and happen regularly. We need to track but don't consider them important enough to warrant an action.

I'll be curious to know what other response you receive to your query.

Best,

Elizabeth

Jen Claudy · November 2017

I'm usually inclined to do the same as Elizabeth. Assigned Appeals used for all mailings, and Appeal Category (and/or Appeal Attributes) used to further define what type of Appeal. Actions reserved for specific contact/communication with one constituent.

Simon Stacey · November 2017

In previous organisations I've also used the rule that bulk communications, whether including a solicitation or not, would be recorded on the Appeals tab. (This also meant that we could use the Response field to record e.g. email outcomes such as soft bounces.) One-to-one communications would go on Actions.

(In some organisations, policy was to also add the bulk communication in Actions, so that the whole communication history was visible in one place for the ease of e.g. supporter care staff on the telephone.)

Sharon Yokelson · November 2017

I am unconvential as I was not trained properly on RE from the beginning and I use Attributes to track all mailings, even some Appeals (I didn't know how to do it right until I'd been using RE for 4 years). I also track invitations in Attributes too as we don't have the Events module. At best RE is confusing for someone who's never used a donor database before and no one in my organization had ever used it either. Our last Annual Fund appeal was the first time I had put it into Actions as I was really doing it to show that our new DOA is not doing her job by not following up on these appeals. This was probably TMI than was needed for this response. But ya got to vent someplace..

Amy Stubbings:

Hi all! I work at a nursing home, and we send 2 kinds of newsletters. One contains an envelope, and is mailed to donors, prospects, VIPs, and the community. This is tracked as an appeal, and is not a concern.

The other is a newsletter with no envelope containing information about programs and activities/construction updates here at the nursing home. It only goes to families (about 450) who have a loved one in our nursing home. It isn't a solicitation.

I think I would prefer to see it in Actions, as it's not an ask. It would also give a more accurate picture of appeals when reviewing the NXT Timeline for people. I'm not sure if that would be confusing to gift officers or not.

How do other people track mailings that aren't asks - Appeals or Actions? Thanks!

Heather MacKenzie · December 2017

Amy Stubbings:

Hi all! I work at a nursing home, and we send 2 kinds of newsletters. One contains an envelope, and is mailed to donors, prospects, VIPs, and the community. This is tracked as an appeal, and is not a concern.

The other is a newsletter with no envelope containing information about programs and activities/construction updates here at the nursing home. It only goes to families (about 450) who have a loved one in our nursing home. It isn't a solicitation.

I think I would prefer to see it in Actions, as it's not an ask. It would also give a more accurate picture of appeals when reviewing the NXT Timeline for people. I'm not sure if that would be confusing to gift officers or not.

How do other people track mailings that aren't asks - Appeals or Actions? Thanks!

Apparently my office is bucking the trend - we would record your appeal one also as an Appeal, and then the 2nd one, the newsletter that is not a solicitation, as an Action.

Alan French · December 2017

Heather MacKenzie:

Apparently my office is bucking the trend - we would record your appeal one also as an Appeal, and then the 2nd one, the newsletter that is not a solicitation, as an Action.

We also would record the first one as an appeal and the second one as an action.

On an unrelated note, Heather you must be storming up the Champions league table with all your replies today during "points-a-palooza"!

Amy Stubbings · December 2017

Thank you all so much! I think I've settled on Appeals for all bulk mailings. That way I can get my Gift Officers to use actions, and have accurate figures for their actual interactions with donors. Yes, I know I can filter on solicitor, but they still think there's different information in RE7 compared to NXT. (lolsob sob sob)

Heather MacKenzie · March 2018

Alan French:

Heather MacKenzie:

Apparently my office is bucking the trend - we would record your appeal one also as an Appeal, and then the 2nd one, the newsletter that is not a solicitation, as an Action.

We also would record the first one as an appeal and the second one as an action.

On an unrelated note, Heather you must be storming up the Champions league table with all your replies today during "points-a-palooza"!

A lucky coincidence, Alan! I tend to only be able to comb through the weekly digest emails about once a month, and when I could just so happeneds during points-a-palooza, a happy side benefit. :-)

Recording Non-Solicitation Mailings - i.e. program contact with families

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