Huge sudden influx of donations - best practices?

Hi Beth,



I recall NetCommunity has integration with Raiser's Edge, so you can set up some checks for duplicate constituents in Raiser's Edge before importing them in. It's like a two step process - first set up the constituent then link the gift in the batch module.



Another way to do this (as we don't have NetCommunity here) and something similar where we receive thousands of gifts from an event is to enter information in Excel spreadsheets then upload the constituents and gift information via Admin --> Import features in Raiser's Edge. It helps to have more resources and one year we had volunteers enter the constituent information onto spreadsheets. We found it easier to have a group of paid causals to look up the constituent in Raiser's Edge and check if they are in the database (phone, name, email). If they weren't, then they would create a constituent record with Load defaults. We found this better than having to deal with potential duplicates, especially as some of the handwriting on the forms were hard to read. Then we had another team add the newly created Constituent ID, name, gift amount, credit card type onto an excel spreadsheet. This would be uploaded into Raiser's Edge by the Database Administrator. More fields would need to be added on the upload file, like gift import ID, etc. Next run a query to find unreceipted gifts in the batch (can create customized batch number in the upload) and "receipt" them in the Mail module.



It could save some time to export your database and compare the files from NetCommunity with the excel function "VLookup" to find the Constituent ID. Then you would know which is an exisiting record.  Hope that helps! Good luck!

Beth - You may wish to use the "select all" checkbox in the donations plug-in, then bulk process all gifts to batch.  You may end up with duplicates, depending on constituent match elements, but you can merge those records afterwards.  You can also use the "options" link on the main NetCommunity plug-ins screen to only show certain types of gifts (by last name alpha, payment type, etc) at once.  Bulk process those to batch.  Go back to options to select the next range to bulk process, etc.

Sounds like you do not use batches. We use them a lot, especially when we have 800+ donations come in one day during a special event. Study what you can do with batch entries, and then set them up ahead of time. You can set a default and hide as many of the fields as will remain fixed (fund, campaign, appeal, gift date/receipt date). For those fields that will usually be one default but may occasionally be something else (letter code, for instance, when most of the donations will receive the same thank you letter, but occasionally a gift will also be a memorial), you can set the default but not hide the field, so you can change a few during entry. You can even add gift attribute fields to your batch. I would highly recommend that you divvy up your gifts by credit card vs. all other forms of payments before you start entry, and set up a batch for credit card/EFTs, another for cash/check. We have a one-day event that nets 700+ donations, 50% from new donors, and thank yous are out in 8 days, so it definitely helps to batch them. I put the batch # into the gift reference field as a default/hidden before I get started, so after they are committed I will be able to find the batch where I entered it more easily. If you plan to match your batches to daily deposits, you can set multiple batches up ahead of time and commit them at the end of the day when you are ready to deposit, match the deposit to the batch report. Arguably, then, you could also change the default/hidden receipt date to match when the deposit will actually be made. Be careful on your defaults - required fields cannot be changed from the gift record later. If required fields are incorrect from a batch entry, you have to delete the gift record and enter manually to fix a required field. Email me if you are lost - tramaker@damien.org