Does anyone have suggestions for how to record contacts with individuals that are unrelated to giving and will not result in a solicitation? Our fundraisers sometimes interact with individuals who help connect us to prospects or who provide feedback on our initiatives, but these individuals will not themselves be involved in gift conversations.
In the past, we’ve recorded these types of interactions in plans with a fiscal year Campaign (e.g. Leadership Giving FY2022) and a plan Status of “Involvement Only.” However, these relationships often continue over several years, so fundraisers have to make new plans for each fiscal year. We typically group all our plans by fiscal year.
One alternative we thought of is creating a Campaign type of “Involvement Only – No Fiscal Year” so fundraisers don’t have to add new plans annually. However, we’re concerned these plans might get unwieldy or even forgotten over time since the rest of our plans are annualized.
If anyone has thoughts or success stories to share, I’d appreciate hearing from you.
Thank you!
Christine, Museum of Science, Boston
Hi Christine,
Two thoughts for you on this:
Your alternative of creating a non-fiscal year campaign is a great one, and it's something we often recommend for situations like this. It's a great use for a prospect campaign. In my experience, these do not get unwieldly, especially if you don't associate any funds or designations with the campaign and plans, because Tessitura will prevent you from adding more than one plan for the campaign/fund/designation combination for the constituent.
Another consideration is that we have upgraded a few things for steps in version 16, including the ability to add steps directly to constituents outside of plans. (It's actually the replacement/enhancement for Reminders in v15). So, you'll have that functionality to look forward to, and whatever you do now can be more of an interim solution than a permanent one.
Hi Michael,
This is helpful food for thought, and good to know about version 16. I'll share with my team. Thanks very much for your input!