Memorial Acknowledgements In Raiser's Edge

Chris, I have a way of creating an envelope in RE:Mail for the Acknowledgee when sending the acknowledgement letter. When I set up the mail merge, I've added an envelope to my letter template so both the envelope and letter are created. I've also done this with my donor acknowledgement letters.

Hi David, here's the link to view recorded webinars from 2017: https://hello.blackbaud.com/Tips-and-Timesavers-WebinarSeriesArchives.html

how can I view last year's webinar on this subject matter

Hey Amanda, you may want to use a mail merge that's conditional on letter type vs. tribute type. Alternatively you could use a "If...Then...Else" field in Microsoft Word (mail merge) to change the text based on tribute type.

Thank you to everyone who attended today's webinar! This one covered a lot of material, especially thanks to all the people who asked their questions during the webinar. I'm posting the follow up information here because I didn't get a chance to answer all of the questions.

Q: Within RE:Mail, is it possible to print envelopes using Acknowledgee addresses?
A: No, because envelopes (and labels) work only for the donor, not for the acknowledgee. As an alternate solution you should use the same input query with an export to create envelopes. Or you could simply click the "Export" button within your Honour/Memorial Letters and print your envelopes through Microsoft Excel.

Q: Is there a way to tell when a tribute acknowledgement has been made?
A: Not in the standard software. You may want to consider globally adding this information using the Import utility, or ImportOmatic.

Q: In OLX (Online Express), is there a way to not automatically add relationships if one is not linked? For example, if someone makes a gift in honour of someone, you would create a constituent record for them but then OLX adds them as a relationship on their own record.
A: This is standard functionality in Online Express. I don't see a way to alter this functionality. You may want to add this to the Idea Bank.

Q: Is there a way to do a custom letter for your first communication to the next of kin? 
A: Yes. There's nothing stopping you from sending a letter to the next of kin using Export, which doesn't make any changes to the "Acknowledgement status" of the tribute/gift.

Q: We do cards to acknowledgees - any hints?
A: Yes. You can adjust the paper size in Microsoft Word so you will print directly on one side of the card. Alternatively you can use Mail and Export to create a data file that will feed into an external process.

Q: I often have duplicate tributes for a constituent, how do I combine them?
A: To my knowledge there's no automated way to do this. If someone else on Blackbaud Community knows, please comment!

Q: Is it possible to export both addressee AND salutation (for the tribute, not the acknowledgee)?  I've only ever been able to extract one or the other.
A: In RE:Mail you can only export this once. So you're correct. This should be attainable using Export because you have access to every field, and can add them more than once if needed. However, if using Export opens up a new can of worms, it may or may not be worth it.

Q: How do you create a mail template that includes addresses for all of the donors without exceeding the restrictions on how many fields can be merged? The most RE will let me include are addresses for 8 donors, and every time I try to update the template, it gets corrupted.
A: This is mainly a restriction of Microsoft Word's number of fields limit of 63/64 that can merged at one time. You may need to go to a more custom mail merge using Access and/or other technology that doesn't rely on a flat file (CSV or Word merge).

Q: For memorial gifts, we like to send acknowledgments to the deceased's family on a weekly basis to let them know of new gifts that have been given.  At the same time, we want all the gifts to roll up under the same Tribute Record for tracking purposes.  Any suggestions for how to mark which gifts have already been acknowledged to the deceased's family without creating multiple Tribute Records?
A: Yes, you'll need to use Export for this. We covered this on the webinar today, so please check out the recording (register for the webinar if you haven't already, and you'll be emailed a link to the recording!)

Great webinar on a subject that I have many questions about how to streamline! But I'll start with this one: Currently, I use a conditional mail merge based on the tribute type - honor or memorial. The honor letters tell the acknowledgee, "Dear <<Acknowledgee>>, A donation has been made in honor of <<Honoree>>." I have to manually change this when the honoree = the acknowledgee, so that it reads "Dear Mr. Smith, a donation has been made in your honor" instead of "Dear Mr. Smith, a donation has been made in honor of Mr. Smith." Do you know of any tricks or shortcuts to automate this? Perhaps with a conditional rule?

Thanks for this tip Rita! I'll be sure to mention this during the webinar!

We use the tribute module all the time. It's a great tool! The Honor/Memorial tab on the Raise's Edge record also has a button to click on for an instant view of all the gifts that have been received for that particular person.