special campaigns

We're in the midst of a 10-year, 4-part special campaign leading up to our centennial - annual, endowment, special operating, and planned gifts. We're asking the mvp's for multi-year commitments to any/all of these components.

• Endowment is a separate campaign and fund in Tessitura than our normal endowment so we can segregate campaign gifts from "regular" ones like seat names, chair names, or honor/memorial. There's one appeal, one source for all gifts under a certain $ level and individual source codes for gifts over a certain $ level. This is also the campaign used for major gift moves management in Solicitations for any donor who has made a gift or is a campaign prospect (regardless of whether it includes an endowment component).
• Annual uses the same campaign and fund for each fiscal year as our regular annual, but with a separate appeal and separate source codes for each possible "raised in" year. So for example, FY12 Annual (campaign), Comprehensive Gift (appeal), FY12 raised in FY10 (source). This gets a little messy by FY18, but it makes reporting easier.
• Special Operating is set up the same as Annual - campaign by fiscal year. There's a different appeal for each donor type (Corporate, Trustee, Foundation, Individual) and then each "raised in" year has a different source code under each appeal. Special Ops has a unique fund code.
• Planned gifts are trickier - we currently don't enter them as contributions in Tessitura but rather record the amount and any information on a custom tab on the constituent record.

All gifts considered "Campaign" gifts are assigned a parent reference number based on the transaction reference number of the first campaign gift. This is entered on the custom screen of each individual contribution or a field on the Planned Gift screen. So, each Campaign donor has a unique reference# on just their campaign gifts. Unfortunately, policies on whose gifts count for whom or what type count as "Campaign Gifts" and which are "Gifts made during the time period of the Campaign" are still being hammered out. But tagging the gifts and pulling the reports this way allows some flexibility in that the reference numbers can be easily added or removed without having to perform adjustments on the gifts.

This allows campaign progress reporting that shows:

1. Which donors have made "campaign" gifts (as opposed to regular annual donors)
2. What donor types have donated what amounts to what component
3. What amounts were raised in which years
4. How much is in each of the campaign components (report separates gifts by Appeal category)

I started a few years into the campaign, so this is the system I inherited. It's complicated and the rules keep changing. The best advice I have is to sit down with all involved, figure out what is included, what needs to be segregated, what needs to be tracked, and what needs to be reported and then build the structure to support those decisions.

We're in the midst of a 10-year, 4-part special campaign leading up to our centennial - annual, endowment, special operating, and planned gifts. We're asking the mvp's for multi-year commitments to any/all of these components.

• Endowment is a separate campaign and fund in Tessitura than our normal endowment so we can segregate campaign gifts from "regular" ones like seat names, chair names, or honor/memorial. There's one appeal, one source for all gifts under a certain $ level and individual source codes for gifts over a certain $ level. This is also the campaign used for major gift moves management in Solicitations for any donor who has made a gift or is a campaign prospect (regardless of whether it includes an endowment component).
• Annual uses the same campaign and fund for each fiscal year as our regular annual, but with a separate appeal and separate source codes for each possible "raised in" year. So for example, FY12 Annual (campaign), Comprehensive Gift (appeal), FY12 raised in FY10 (source). This gets a little messy by FY18, but it makes reporting easier.
• Special Operating is set up the same as Annual - campaign by fiscal year. There's a different appeal for each donor type (Corporate, Trustee, Foundation, Individual) and then each "raised in" year has a different source code under each appeal. Special Ops has a unique fund code.
• Planned gifts are trickier - we currently don't enter them as contributions in Tessitura but rather record the amount and any information on a custom tab on the constituent record.

All gifts considered "Campaign" gifts are assigned a parent reference number based on the transaction reference number of the first campaign gift. This is entered on the custom screen of each individual contribution or a field on the Planned Gift screen. So, each Campaign donor has a unique reference# on just their campaign gifts. Unfortunately, policies on whose gifts count for whom or what type count as "Campaign Gifts" and which are "Gifts made during the time period of the Campaign" are still being hammered out. But tagging the gifts and pulling the reports this way allows some flexibility in that the reference numbers can be easily added or removed without having to perform adjustments on the gifts.

This allows campaign progress reporting that shows:

1. Which donors have made "campaign" gifts (as opposed to regular annual donors)
2. What donor types have donated what amounts to what component
3. What amounts were raised in which years
4. How much is in each of the campaign components (report separates gifts by Appeal category)

I started a few years into the campaign, so this is the system I inherited. It's complicated and the rules keep changing. The best advice I have is to sit down with all involved, figure out what is included, what needs to be segregated, what needs to be tracked, and what needs to be reported and then build the structure to support those decisions.

Thanks for your input guys!  We will be tracking the effort in Solicitations.  I am trying to find the best way to track the results- and it's true that there are seveal ways I could do that. 

I am trying to make sure that 20 years from now, it's really easy to look at someone's giving history and see what happened (annual giving,campaign gifts, etc.) I am also trying to find the cleanest way to report througout the campaign on how each "bucket" is doing. 

I am leaning toward keeping endowment and bridge in their existing funds under our "for all times" campagin.  Endowment funds are endowment funds regardless of when they came in or what effort they came in, so to have them all in on fund makes sense and I could track them by appeal (2013 special campaign, etc) to see which gifts are from the current effort. 

It would be easiest for ME to build a new campaign with a fund for each area, but then the when we want to look at the theater's overall endowed and special funds, you'd have to know to pull multiple campaigns.  I could use a campaign category, right?

This is the stuff I think about at 3:00 a.m......

I appreciate your insight.  Let me know if you have any other thoughts.

Best,

Margaret

Thanks for your input guys!  We will be tracking the effort in Solicitations.  I am trying to find the best way to track the results- and it's true that there are seveal ways I could do that. 

I am trying to make sure that 20 years from now, it's really easy to look at someone's giving history and see what happened (annual giving,campaign gifts, etc.) I am also trying to find the cleanest way to report througout the campaign on how each "bucket" is doing. 

I am leaning toward keeping endowment and bridge in their existing funds under our "for all times" campagin.  Endowment funds are endowment funds regardless of when they came in or what effort they came in, so to have them all in on fund makes sense and I could track them by appeal (2013 special campaign, etc) to see which gifts are from the current effort. 

It would be easiest for ME to build a new campaign with a fund for each area, but then the when we want to look at the theater's overall endowed and special funds, you'd have to know to pull multiple campaigns.  I could use a campaign category, right?

This is the stuff I think about at 3:00 a.m......

I appreciate your insight.  Let me know if you have any other thoughts.

Best,

Margaret