Prevent Gift Data Disasters – Four Tips For A Policies And Procedures Guide
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Gifts are the foundation of your organization’s database. Gifts provide the means to continue supporting your organization’s mission. How gift information is entered directly impacts your mailing and data analysis efforts. Without a clearly defined gift entry process, your organization could end up with a real data disaster.
Good news! You can avert data disasters by implementing a policies and procedures guide for gift data management. Here are four fabulous tips to help you create or update your guide and keep data disasters in check.
1. Include the right people
Gift data entry impacts many teams at your organization. The data entry team enters the gifts, the finance team manages reconciliation, fundraisers out on the road solicit gifts, and a database administrator is in charge of setting up database access and table entries. If you consider who needs input into your policies and procedures guide, you’ll ensure your guide supports everyone’s needs. A guide that addresses the needs of all data users will preserve data integrity.
2. Keep it organized
A good policies and procedures guide is comprehensive and can become lengthy. Your staff will not want to sift through pages of text just to locate the naming conventions for Appeal records. Make the document easy to navigate so users can quickly find the needed information. An easy-to-use guide will be a more effective resource which staff will actually want to use.
Bonus tip: Consider adding screenshots or short video demonstrations to provide extra visuals for processes!
3. Make it accessible
Once you have enough up-to-date detail in your guide, ensure staff is using it! Be sure to share your guide. Consider what is the best way to make it accessible for all users at your organization. Is a printout the best option or should the document be shared virtually—or both? An easy-to-access guide ensures users will be able to find and use it when needed.
4. Schedule recurring meetings for updates
Wherever you share it, be sure each copy stays updated! Policies and procedures guides are living documents—this means they should not be put on a back shelf never to be used or updated. Software updates, trends in the marketplace, and changing staff can all impact the details of a policies and procedures guide. Don’t wait until you have time to update your guide. Schedule recurring meetings to re-evaluate and update your guide. An up-to-date guide will enable staff to keep up with software, best practices, and procedures requirements.
Bonus tip: Get help!
There is a lot of information to include in a policies and procedures guide, and creating one can be an overwhelming task. To learn more tips about what information to include and how to construct your guide, sign up for our new three-hour instructor-led workshop, Raiser’s Edge Workshop: Policies and Procedures—Gifts. Our new Raiser’s Edge Solution Workshop courses focus on where technology and process intersect, and help you apply product-related best practices at your organization. Great news! All of our Workshop courses are included in your Learn Everything training subscription.
The Blackbaud Community is full of posts concerning policies and procedures guide best practices and gift entry. Tour the posts—and add your own questions and helpful policies and procedures guide implementation tips!
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Raiser's Edge® Blog
04/11/2017 2:36pm EDT
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