Ringing in the New Year

It's the beginning of a new year, and The Raiser's Edge can help you recognize the past year's top donors, analyze giving, and plan for a better year ahead.

Query is a fast and easy way to group donors you would like to recognize. To find donors whose cumulative giving exceeded a specific amount in the last year, create a new constituent query and filter on Summary Information, Summary for Gift, Total Amount greater than or equal to [specific amount]. In the total amount criteria window, select the Filter tab to add the date range criteria (e.g., Gift Date between 1/1/2012 - 12/31/2012).

Summary Information fields include default gift types, including Cash, Pledge, MG Pledge, Stock/Property, Stock/Property (Sold), Gift-in-Kind, Recurring Gift Pay-Cash, and Other, minus Write Off and MG Write Off. To consider your own gift types (e.g., pledge payments instead of pledges), filter by Gift Type on the Filter tab. See the Knowledgebase solution Summary Information Total Amount is incorrect in the query results for more information about the gift types included, and How to query on constituents' total giving within a date range to watch a video that walks you through the query process.

Use Mail to thank donors for their gifts and appeal for new ones. You can use Donor Acknowledgement Letters to thank your constituents for the gifts they
donated to your organization last year. Only gifts marked as Not Acknowledged are included in Donor Acknowledgement Letters, and you can update the acknowledgement status during the merge process to make sure each gift is acknowledged only once.

Use Appeal Cards to remind constituents of ongoing appeals or to notify them of new ones. You can include information about a constituent's past gifts and include a suggested gift amount.

There are several options in Reports for evaluating previous fundraising strategies and planning new approaches. The Top Donors Report is used to identify top donors by percent or count, while the Donor Category Report divides donors into giving levels defined in Configuration, Tables.

Other useful reports include the Consecutive Years Report, which identifies donors who have given repeatedly over several years and the Comparative Report, which compares constituents' giving trends across two report periods. The Comparative Report is the most direct way to determine whose giving increased or decreased.

The Annual Statement Report itemizes each constituent's gifts on a separate page and provides donors with everything they need for tax purposes in one form. You can include all records, selected records, or one record, and filter by date range, campaigns, funds, appeals, constituent codes, attributes, and gift types. The report includes Constituent Name (including an Address), Date, Gift Type, Amount, Receipt Number, and Receipt Amount as default columns.

As you develop an approach that suits your organization, document it in a policies and procedures manual. If you think that your manual would be useful to other organizations, add it as an attachment to a post in our shared client documents forum.

For more information on recognizing last year's donors, review the Knowledgebase solution How to recognize last year's donors based on giving.