Hi,
This isn't so much a Tessitura question and it's more of an organizational question regarding program names. I'm wondering if anyone is willing to share their guidelines as to what gets "counted" in your program names. At Pacific Symphony, we're trying to come up with some strict guidelines as to what counts and I would love to see what other organizations are doing!
For example, for your annual fund donors, will you include money received for elevated events as part of annual giving? Do you count endowment and capital campaign money received or do you have a separate listing for these people? Do you count volunteer support group membership money?
We recognize $2,500+ of annual fund, artistic initiative support, Miami residency support, special fundraising, special event contributions(Gala), in-kind support, instrument donation, touring support, volunteer committee contributions and sometimes endowment and sometimes capital for some donors. Some donors are recognized for the combined total of themselves and their corporation or foundation. Some people are recognized as foundations or corporations and some corporations and foundations are recognized as people. Also some donors are recognized at some levels just because. We also have separate listings for endowed funds, our Heritage Society (planned gifts), cumulative donors of $1m+, and donors to our Sound For The Centennial campaign.
When it's program listing review time (approx quarterly), I put together spreadsheets using the Program Name Listing report and then vlookup the assigned MGO's, the relevant donor contributions and put a total column next to the listing level. This spreadsheet is then sent out to the department for review. Donors are recognized at the higher level of the current fiscal year or the previous fiscal year, unless they're recognized at a different level, again, just because.
There are two really useful tools I've found (so far) that help to manage the process. First, we made a CSI category of "Program Book Modification" - if staff wants to move a donor up or down or change a name or etc, they create a CSI on that donor's record describing the change and the reason for doing so and for how long the change is in effect. This provides me with an easily accessible and trackable list of changes that need to be made in Tessitura and in the book. Once I've verified the change has made it into the book I can close the CSI and the rationale is still there for future me.
The other thing I've found really useful is for any donor that has a listing other than what the math would indicate (e.g. the "just because" or the couple of donors with no AF gifts but we recognize for yearly endowment contributions) I put "!!!" in their program listing name. So, "Jim and Caryn Reynolds !!!". This is a visual indicator for me and the rest of the department when reviewing the listings that this person is a special case. And again, the rationale for why they're listed that way and for how long is stored in a CSI on their record. Then it's just a find/replace to remove the "!!!" before sending to print.