Plans -- Using "dummy" Campaigns Not Tied to Specific Fiscal Years/Funds

Hi Michael,

Can you share a bit more about your goals for using Plans? Is it about relationship management, or donor recognition? Or donor benefits?

Megan

Yes?

The impetuous is definitely donor recognition (and tracking relationship management in those asks), but we're lumping moneys from different Tessitura Funds as part of the same recognition programme. So money from Major Gifts and Sponsorships and Memberships might all count for a given donor.

So hence why I'm leaning towards using a distinct campaign and tagging the contributions manually.

So guess it's 2 questions: 1) is it technically possible to do in Tessitura; and 2) is it a good idea.

Michael,

1) Yes, it is technically possible, we combine many campaign donations into one campaign, although we usually just use one that is already pre-existing where we expect most of the funds will go.  You could technically set up a dummy campaign, the only down fall I see is that donations will not automatically pick up that campaign because I'm assuming you will not have any funds attached to that campaign.   

2) Is it a good idea?  That's more difficult to answer and depends on your unique needs.  This would allow you to see all plans associated with this 'dummy' campaign under campaign and in plan reports.  However, this will not allow you to use membership as T.C. Brown says below because a membership is not attached to a Plan it is attached to a campaign through donations made to the funds in that campaign. You could simply create a membership organization (Campaigns-->Membership) for this new recognition program and attach that membership to each campaign you want to feed into it.  

Michael,

1) Yes, it is technically possible, we combine many campaign donations into one campaign, although we usually just use one that is already pre-existing where we expect most of the funds will go.  You could technically set up a dummy campaign, the only down fall I see is that donations will not automatically pick up that campaign because I'm assuming you will not have any funds attached to that campaign.   

2) Is it a good idea?  That's more difficult to answer and depends on your unique needs.  This would allow you to see all plans associated with this 'dummy' campaign under campaign and in plan reports.  However, this will not allow you to use membership as T.C. Brown says below because a membership is not attached to a Plan it is attached to a campaign through donations made to the funds in that campaign. You could simply create a membership organization (Campaigns-->Membership) for this new recognition program and attach that membership to each campaign you want to feed into it.  

Hi Terry,

Yes, this is along the lines of what we thinking. (We're already using Memberships for... well, memberships. Some of our donors would then have multiple active memberships.)

One of the advantages we were thinking about the "dummy" campaign would be it not being tied to the Tessitura fiscal year of the contribution as this is a 5 year drive.

Yes, the manual piece seems the biggest downside.

I think this could be very easily programmed in attributes so that manual work isn't needed. Some would say that I am overly reliant on attributes though. :)

If you have any questions about the logic and set-up I'm happy to share. You'll need a DBA for initial set-up, but then it should run on its own from there.

Cheers,
Megan

Fortunately, we've got a DBA. (Hint: It's me.) Didn't want to start down a bonkers track and realise I'd made a huge mistake.

Our list of targeted donors/prospects < 200 Households so manual piece doesn't seem overwhelming. (We're using a Constituency right now to keep track in Tessitura. The attributes seems interesting.)