How Would You Categorize Your Appeals?

Chances are, your appeals fall into one of just a few buckets. For my organization, those buckets include: Direct Mail, General Giving, Honor/Memorial, and one for each of our three big events.

You probably don't have to think too hard about what buckets exist at your organization - this stuff is second nature. But a lot of DBAs I've talked to in the Raiser's Edge world have never even considered codifying this information direct on the appeal. You can do this by creating specific appeal categories and making the appeal category field required.

But what's the benefit of this? If your org is like mine, then it sends out a lot of direct mail appeals. And donors may return appeals that are way, way out of date on a regular basis. So what do you do when someone asks you "how much did direct mail bring in last quarter?" If all of your direct mail appeals have the same category, then answering this question is as simple as having a standing gift query that just look for all gifts whose appeal category equals "direct mail" and piping that query into any one of the financial reports you like to use (my favorite is the Appeal Performance Analysis).

Of course, some of you may have a completely different gift structure. Maybe all of your direct mail appeals get put in the same campaign, or maybe they all receive a specific fund. If that's the case, then maybe you can find another creative use for this tool. Either way, I think everyone should take a look at their categories and figure out how to best utilize this easy grouping feature in Raiser's Edge. 

(Community Manager's note: This is a blog entry into our Summer School contest. It has not been vetted through the Raiser's Edge team for accuracy.)