Recording Social Media Gifts in RE

Connie Downing · August 2018

We have been fortunate to have several Facebook fundraisers (birthdays etc.) on our behalf and also accept donations via our Facebook page. My question is how best to record the gifts. For now, I am scrutinizing the names to see if any of them are board members or major donors etc. & then I add the gift to their individual record. For a new donor who provides an email (few do), I also create a record & record the gift so that we then have it in our database & can email them again directly. For all the other gifts, I have been entering the totals twice monthly in a special constituent record we have for smaller gifts. It is a great problem to have as we are seeing an increase in donations & for now it is manageable but my process is time consuming. Is anyone else dealing with this issue and solving it in a different way? Thanks so much.

Ryan Hyde · August 2018

We JUST started this, and we're dealing with it very similarly to you. The only meaningful difference is that we track these donations via two appeals, "Facebook - In House" and "Facebook - 3rd Party." There's a column in the report that indicates the source of the gift, whether it's from someone's "it's my birthday!" post or if it's from one of our own social media posts. We like to track those differently because the "it's my birthday" type gifts are going to go to our 3rd Party Fundraiser budget line, and the rest is going to our general budget line.

Cassondra Farris · August 2018

Connie Downing:

We have been fortunate to have several Facebook fundraisers (birthdays etc.) on our behalf and also accept donations via our Facebook page. My question is how best to record the gifts. For now, I am scrutinizing the names to see if any of them are board members or major donors etc. & then I add the gift to their individual record. For a new donor who provides an email (few do), I also create a record & record the gift so that we then have it in our database & can email them again directly. For all the other gifts, I have been entering the totals twice monthly in a special constituent record we have for smaller gifts. It is a great problem to have as we are seeing an increase in donations & for now it is manageable but my process is time consuming. Is anyone else dealing with this issue and solving it in a different way? Thanks so much.

Hi Connie,

We just started this as well and are doing the entering twice a month except adding each person to RE with the facebook link to their page. Some of the more substantial donations we have our Facebook send a message with a thank you and request for more information to submit a tax letter. So far everyone has provided their information.

Connie Downing · August 2018

Ryan Hyde:

We JUST started this, and we're dealing with it very similarly to you. The only meaningful difference is that we track these donations via two appeals, "Facebook - In House" and "Facebook - 3rd Party." There's a column in the report that indicates the source of the gift, whether it's from someone's "it's my birthday!" post or if it's from one of our own social media posts. We like to track those differently because the "it's my birthday" type gifts are going to go to our 3rd Party Fundraiser budget line, and the rest is going to our general budget line.

Thanks Ryan. Good idea. Do you name your social media posts?

Connie Downing · August 2018

Cassondra Farris:

Connie Downing:

We have been fortunate to have several Facebook fundraisers (birthdays etc.) on our behalf and also accept donations via our Facebook page. My question is how best to record the gifts. For now, I am scrutinizing the names to see if any of them are board members or major donors etc. & then I add the gift to their individual record. For a new donor who provides an email (few do), I also create a record & record the gift so that we then have it in our database & can email them again directly. For all the other gifts, I have been entering the totals twice monthly in a special constituent record we have for smaller gifts. It is a great problem to have as we are seeing an increase in donations & for now it is manageable but my process is time consuming. Is anyone else dealing with this issue and solving it in a different way? Thanks so much.

Hi Connie,

We just started this as well and are doing the entering twice a month except adding each person to RE with the facebook link to their page. Some of the more substantial donations we have our Facebook send a message with a thank you and request for more information to submit a tax letter. So far everyone has provided their information.

Thanks. That is a good idea.

Ryan Hyde · August 2018

I'm not sure if we can name them in a way that comes over via the biweekly report, but there's a column that indicates the source of the fundraising form, and it's easy to identify our posts vs 3rd party posts.

Heather MacKenzie · October 2018

We are still a small enough size of gifts through Facebook that it's been possible to send a message through FB to the donors and let them know that if they want a receipt and to be recorded properly in our database (to receive future mailings, etc.) that we need their email as a minimum. We've gotten some response, but not all.

David Dines · November 2018

We're certainly seeing a growing volume of donations come to us via Facebook and the one thing I'm hoping is for Blackbaud to establish a way to make a more formal connection between the two systems so as to make the transfer of giving info easier. Right now I do it by import, which isn't the worst, but that still necessitates some time-sucking item by item work on my part to identify which are new and which are already existing constituents.

Jeanna Dawson 2 · November 2018

this is def. becoming more significant as people decide to "give" on FB for their birthdays and other holidays- thanks for being the trailblazers on this!

Tiffany Schroyer 2 · June 2021

I have found that the simplest way of handling 3rd party gifts is to enter them into the 3rd party constituent record and soft credit any names and amounts that are given.

This allows us to send an end of year thank you letter for their soft credits if we have their contact information. This will also allow me to enter the exact amount coming from the 3rd party and soft credit the total amount donated.

Recording Social Media Gifts in RE

Comments

Categories