We're a relatively new organization, and I'm working on how to set up our annual campaigns for the future, as our current structure is not working well for internal reporting. After talking with our finance department, we've identified three major areas of giving that we would like to set up into individual campaigns: performance underwriting (both charitable and non-charitable); our education/outreach program; and general annual giving, which would include a membership component. To keep track of giving from various sources, we would have separate funds within each campaign for foundation, government, corporate, and individual giving.
I realize this is the inverse of how a lot of organizations set up their campaigns, which is to create the campaigns based on the source of the giving and then use funds to separate gifts into specific purposes. But our internal reporting focuses more on the areas of giving rather than where the money's coming from, so it seems to make more sense to set it up the way I've described above. Does anyone else have a similar structure, and if so, does it work well for you? What are the major problems you encounter when entering or reporting gifts?
Thanks, Lucy. Do you have any sort of membership program that you associate with your one campaign? I’m starting to wonder if we need to separate our membership campaign from other, undesignated general operating gifts. I know donors can decline membership benefits when giving, but it seems that things might get complicated if a donor wanted to pay for membership at a certain level and then makes various random gifts throughout the year (for example, added on to ticket purchases).
On the other hand, our initial thought was to include undesignated gifts in the annual giving membership campaign so that they could easily be upgraded into membership categories if the donor wanted. I’m just having a hard time imagining which scenarios might be more likely.
Lisa Laney
From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Lucie Spieler Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:25 PM To: Lisa Laney Subject: RE: [Tessitura Development Forum] Campaign and Fund Structuring
We do what you do. We have an annual campaign with separate funds for individuals, corporations, foundations, and government grantors (times two—we are a merged company and have to report these amounts separately by county). We track donor intent by mostly designations and, for gifts in memory/honor of someone, also by source codes.
We switched to one campaign instead of four three years ago and haven’t looked back.
_____________________________ Lucie Spieler IT Development and Training Manager
Editor, Season Program Book FLORIDA GRAND opera
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