We are looking for a couple examples of best practices for Campaign, Appeal, Source, Designation, etc. set up for our upcoming fiscal year. Our financial software is not integrated in to Tess reporting. The development staff has been using an existing set up which is currently not using designations at all. If you have an example of to how you chart out your structure at the beginning of the fiscal year that you can share we would appreciate seeing it as a means of comparison.
Also, who sets up your structure? Is it Finance, Dev or a database administrator?
Thank you! Kristin
I’m not sure I can claim that what we do is the best practice but I’m happy to share. I’ll start out with easy question, who sets up Campaign/Appeals/Sources/Designations? We have a power user group at our site and they are responsible for the setup and maintenance of campaigns, appeals, and sources throughout the year.
Basically we have ticketing campaigns and fundraising campaigns. The ticketing campaign structure is strongly tied to project or show. The structure of the fundraising campaigns is imposed by financial reporting.
We have two main ticketing campaigns: single ticket and subscription. Education programs and rentals have a separate campaign. Ticketing appeals are by project or show. For example, the subscription campaign has a renewal appeal and an acquisition appeal. The sources following this example are telemarketing lead groups, subscription invoices, brochure mailing and the like.
For our organization it is important to capture contributions by group: individual, corporate, etc. Each group gets a campaign every fiscal year, example FY13 Individual. The appeals reflect the major efforts for each campaign, tele-funding, direct mail, in-kind, and other program specific appeals. The sources are lead groups, mailing efforts, pledge drive letters. We use designations to tie donations across different groups to programs. For example, we receive donations from corporations, foundations, and individuals (groups) for education and outreach (program).
Feel free to give a call if you’d like to chat more.
Jean J. Rivers ControllerSan Jose Repertory Theatre101 Paseo de San AntonioSan Jose, CA 95113t: 1-408-367-7286f: 1-408-367-7237e: jeanr@sjrep.comwww.SJREP.com