Hi there,
I wanted to put this out there and see if others are doing what we are considering.
In the past we have had two separate campaigns for our AF individuals. One was for what is considered major or higher level donors and the other for the rest of us. When someone gives multiple smaller level gifts during a FY that would total the major donor amount we would have to do a campaign adjustment in order to get them into the correct membership category and level.
The companies I have worked for in the past used the campaign to help reconcile with the finance department since the major donor and member donor each had individual line items and gls.
The Opera does not and this separation appears to simply be a development set up. Is there a downside to one AF campaign and fund with memberships and/or designations helping to distinguish between the giving levels?
We have also used fixed memberships in the past and are just now working with a consultant to move everything into rolling memberships. Moving forward would the one campaign help our development department better identify the needs of the constituents within the memberships as they really could see the micro and macro trends?
Looking forward to your feedback and sharing with our development department.
Michelle
Michelle,
We use one campaign for AF and then designations, plans and membership in conjunction to id Major donors, Leadership donors, and general AF gifts.
Based on the amount of the gift or the plan that has been assigned determines the designation we use on the gift. So if someone give $1,500 they are a leadership donor and get a leadership designation.
This works well for us and with membership, which we use as giving levels, it makes it easy to know which category a donor falls into.
Also, with all gifts going into one campaign you don't have do make any gift changes down the road, which if your finance department is like ours, makes them very happy.
Melissa
Hi Michelle,
I can't think of a reason to not move to a single campaign. That's what I've encountered at several organizations now. There aren't drawbacks, and I suspect you'll find it very helpful once you've transitioned.
You could use funds to distinguish gifts in the way you currently use campaigns. It will make reporting simple. You may consider leaving small gifts made by major donors in the lower level fund. Or, put them in the major line (for year to year comparison), but if someone transitions from low to high giving in a season, let the fund transition with the donor's transition, and don't adjust their earlier, lower level gift. Food for thought.
I've had reports built that simply add up someone's giving to the annual fund campaign within a season. It removes any reliance on fund when reviewing our participation at various giving levels.
Megan
Hi, Michelle:
We have one annual fund campaign into which most gifts go, of all levels. In the eleven years I’ve been in my current position, we’ve gone from five membership campaigns (separate membership organizations for corporations, individuals, foundations, government grants, and support of our young artist program) to one campaign (all of the above in one annual campaign) to two campaigns (annual campaign and young artist program support) to track gifts.
We do our financial reconciliation at the fund level, because that’s where the GLs are—and, a couple of years ago, started tracking giving levels with new funds, so, now, three funds for every one fund we had before. This does mean that when someone moves up from one membership level to a higher one, the Development department needs to do gift adjustments to move from one fund to another, but it does make reporting easier. I don’t see how the added gift entry work (and opportunity for errors to occur) is worth it—and we’ve taken away the opportunity to track consecutive gifts to the same fund from within an account—but this is not my problem!
This is entirely Development-driven, having to do with how they choose to assign benefits to various groups.
Lucie
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Lucie Spieler Florida Grand Opera
Thank you all, so very much. I think we are definitely moving in that direction. Too many adjustments make people's heads spin as our generous donors move up the giving ladder.