As part of our last capital campaign, donors could have spaces named depending on their giving level. There wasn't any particular appeal for this. Some chose specifically to give a set amount in order to name a space, and other top donors were presented with various special naming opportunities befitting their level. As such, there isn't a specific source code tied to an appeal. However, we want to record both the ask and those who chose to name spaces in Tessitura. Luckily, the gift officer has a very thorough manual spreadsheet with the details.
My question would be, where should we actually record this info? My gut reaction is to record named spaces as an attribute where the attribute type is Named Space, and then the details are the name of the space itself. Does this make sense, or is there a better way to accomplish this?
Hello-
We are a zoo and have a lot of named things such as sculptures, benches, buildings, and a lot of bricks. Most of these actual campaigns were pre-Tessitura (some dating back to 2001) and we had various levels of historical details. We wanted to get a handle on this, so last summer we created a Volunteer Project (who was actually my daughter ) to catalog all the "things". First, she went around and took a photo of everything along with the inscription, location, & a few other details. She then created a big spreadsheet. The goal was to cross-reference what we could figure out and get it in to Tessitura. What we did was add the info in two places. We uploaded the photo to Research--> Documents(new) and we put the Inscription into the Alias Field - which allows for it to be searchable. Our goal, in this instance, was not specifically to get the actual gift/money/contribution info, but simply to get a record of what was out there. In many cases, the Contribution was in already in the system from conversion and it all sort of lined up.
She also cross-referenced some old binders and other documents to play detective to get it all tied together. I will admit, there are still quite a few unaccounted pieces...for instance, it is hard to back-track a brick that simply says "In Honor of Our Dog Fido". But, overall, we are in a much better place and it has come in handy three times since it was complete. We received a call from someone asking about a bench, and boom - it was in Tess! Here are a few screenshots:
This may not be exactly what you are trying to accomplish, but I hope it gives you some more ideas!
Based on some internal conversations, we've decided (for the moment) to use Research Notes. If we create a note type for naming opportunities, we can still report on that as an output set. Then within the note itself we can reference any relevant gifts, campaigns, and terms. We're still open to better options if anyone has any other ideas.
Thanks for the quick, thorough response!
Glad I could help! One last screenshot of how we use the Fields in Documents(new)
We also use Research notes with a Note Type of Onsite Naming/Tribute Details. The thought behind that was to make it easily accessible to our front line staff of cashiers and membership staff (btw, I'm with the MN Zoo Foundation, not Guthrie I can't figure out how to change that). If a guest approached the desk at the Zoo and asked about where a plaque was that they contributed to the frontline person should be able to look in the honoree's record and be able to say "oh, that bench/plaque is on this trail near this animal exhibit".
I have entered that Research note on the honoree's record and if there was a facilitator of the funds being raised for the tribute I also put the note there. A donor may only remember that they gave money to Joe Smith, but not remember that the plaque was for someone else with a last name they have forgotten.
Our bricks dated back to the 1990s where much of the info was on paper still and prior to working for our Foundation I was the volunteer that walked around, took pictures and researched those bricks about Fido.