Hi,
We are trying to come up with an effective way of tracking our silent action donors. I'm thinking of using attributes, but I notice in some of my notes that others use constituency. Any input on best practices before we do something we'll regret.
Here at the Tech Museum, we would use attributes.
Our practices reserve constituencies for major groups: Board, Members, Former Board, Corporate Donors, etc. Constituencies are visible to all users on the general tab, but this doesn't seem to be the kind of info that everyone needs to see.
I also suggest putting a date in the attribute, such as "Silent Auction 09." Next year it could be "Silent Auction 10." In the future, you'll be able to easily pull up your most reliable donors which could be useful.
We enter all auction donations as in-kind gifts in Tessitura. I create a separate campaign (e.g., FY09 Fine Wine & Food Festival In-Kind) and use Designations for “Silent Auction” or “Food Producer” etc. I used to use attributes to mark auction donors, but once we started recording these gifts, I found that this was redundant record-keeping since I can always pull lists/extractions based on giving history instead.
Odele
Odele Peter
Development Database Coordinator
Flynn Center for the Performing Arts
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From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Steven Hanks Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 2:52 PM To: Odele Peter Subject: Re: [Tessitura Development Forum] auction donations
From: Yvette Guigueno <bounce-yvetteguigueno9572@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 5/5/2009 4:36:24 PM
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The one problem with entering in auction donations as in-kind contributions is that if you are then auctioning them and entering in the winning bid as a contribution, you are essentially double-counting the gift. I would also recommend using attributes.
From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Odele Peter Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 12:32 PM To: Emily Lakin Subject: RE: [Tessitura Development Forum] auction donations
I have entered our prize donors from last year under the contacts -> solicitation tab.
This way we can also include notes and keep records of those who were approached to donate and declined. It also makes recording the soliciter easy.
The Solicitation Table Report can pull lists of donors by Campaign and Solicitation Type. I have created a type "Goods".
We started off 2 years ago using constituency for just about everything including silent auction donors. Some of our constituents have 7 or 8 constituency on their headers. We now have the task of streamlining and retiring a lot of constituency and slient auction donor will be one of the ones going into an attribute.
We assessed it this way if everyone in the company needs to know then its a constituency if only a small group of people need know then its an attribute.