advice on UDFs to track major gifts and moves management?

Jeffrey Haguewood

Technology Sidekick for Nonprofit Heroes at Sidekick Solutions

Hi Cindy, A UDF build out in this area can vary heavily depending on your processes and how your users interact with the system. Your processes dictate how the fields are setup and your user engagement will determine what types of reports you need (depending on whether they will log in and look at the system or if they need weekly or daily updates with status reports). It will also depend on how static or dynamic you need the system. I recommend blueprinting whatever you plan on building first. Here is a post on blueprinting that might help.http://www.sidekicksolutionsllc.com/blueprint-nonprofit-software-for-implementation-and-long-term-success/ As you think through the reports you need and the data you want to track I usually recommend thinking about major gifts and moves management as three objects. 1. Constituent Profile (Constituent UDFs) - this will be used to segment prospects and active donors as well as identify them apart from your larger constituent pool; each profile might have fields for capacity, rating, list segmentation, interests, and other fields. 2. Major Gift Opportunities (Journal Entry Contact UDFs) - this will be used to track all open opportunities through a funnel to close; each opportunity might have fields like expected amount, anticipated give date, stage, and other fields to qualify the opportunity. 3. Action and Next Action (Journal Entry Contact UDFs) - this will be used to track all actions (current) and next actions (future); this object will have fields like next action, next action due, next action responsibility. With these three objects you can run a profile report, a funnel or open opportunities report, and an action history and next action report. I hope that gets you moving in the right direction.

Janet Smith:

Pam Dechert, CFRE

Senior Consultant, Professional Services at Blackbaud

 

 

We have pre built user defined field sets (with some prebuilt starter queries and reports) for Major Gifts that can easily be customized to fit your specific development and cultivation needs. We also have an extensive pre built set (again, customizable) for Moves Management, including capacity ratings and For Impact rating that allows you to rank donors based on interest, capacity etc. To download each, go to Management, User Defined Fields, and click on Add Defined field sets. You can see and automatically add them there. It gives you a start on the process, without having to build them yourself. We also offer a Continuing Education session for Major Gifts tracking you may want to sign up for coming up in a few weeks.https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=786339&sessionid=1&key=A335FE6DD8DCEC30099926710D75144E&sourcepage=register

Cindy Sharek

Director of Major Gifts at King County Library System Foundation

Thank you both for your feedback and suggestions. We've already imported the pre built set for Moves Management but wasn't sure the best practices of entry now that we have it. I didn't want to spend a lot of time entering information that wouldn't create the reports we need. I just signed up for the eTap class on using the major gift fields. Thanks again.