Best practice for recording a mailing in RE that is not generated from Raiser's Edge

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Anja Spears
Anja Spears ✭
Ninth Anniversary
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Our organization has recently decided to create a 'Welcome Package' for any new donors. In addition, repeated donors will get the last two pages of this package that has some up-to-date information and stats. Because of the nature and quality of the package, we are having it printed from an outside source. I am trying to figure out the best practice for indicating in RE that a donor has received the welcome package and what level of the package received, so that I can continue using the Batch function for gift entry and not have to go into each constituent record and look at the giving history to determine what they should be receiving while I am printing receipts. I also want to be able to later export reports on this outside mailing, so I thought about creating an Appeal, but in terms of not duplicating packages and indicating who has received what so that RE knows while I'm doing the gift entry, I am unsure of what to use. I am also unfamiliar with the 'attribute' function. 


Thanks! 
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Comments

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Am in the midst of grants that are due this week - so will be brief and can follow up later if others don't.


    Do you have a way to query on the records that received the "welcome package"?  Is outside source mailing and filtering list or just printing?  (If they are filtering, be sure to include IDs in data you give them and then get file back so you can create query.)  If you take that query for each level of the package you can do a global add to add the appeal and as part of that add the package. 


    Then to help when entering gifts in batch, you can create (need rights to do this part) a business rule that will pop up when you enter the constituent name saying the message you designate - "Received welcome package..."  Works reallly well.


    You can find directions for creating business rules in Knowledgebase.


    I personally wouldn't use attributes - others might.  Might need to though if you're changing what they received based on subsequent gifts.
  • Nicole S
    Nicole S ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Ditto to what others have said about setting up a business rule to pop up when entering the gift. YOu can base it on something like no previous gifts. Also, I'd use an action to record this mailing. For me this works a little better than an appeal because it's more individual and you may want to follow up. I typically use appeals for large mass mailings.
  • Nikki Brown Pyzik
    Nikki Brown Pyzik ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    You could also create a query of all your new donors for the week and then add an action for them with the welcome package. You could either globally add the action or import it.

    You could also set them on an action track for new donors that includes the welcome package and have it be a pre defined action and then run your mailing query on that for labels, etc.

    Depending on your volume you could do it daily, weekly, etc.

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