Operating Years and Campaigns/Funds

Nate Laning

As we migrate to RE NXT, I'm noting that our campaign structure doesn't fit well into the default NXT reporting tools that we plan to use. We've always used gift date for year-to-date comparisons when reporting income for certain campaigns. As an example, we have an Annual Fund campaign record, as well as a standard Annual Fund fund record, both having been existence for quite a few years, never changing. For operating year comparisons, we simply pulled gifts to the Annual Fund campaign within certain time frames. 


That may have worked previously, but it would be preferred to more easily run these comparisons using NXT's default reporting tools. I'd also like to begin utilizing the overall campaign goal and fundraiser goals for the campaigns, by year.


How has your organization set this up? Do you create a new campaign for each year, leaving your fund records the same? Or do you track this detail differently?

Alyson Watts

I've seen it done both ways, but more often than not the Campaign at least changes year to year. That way you can manage 'bridge' gifts that you want to count toward a donor's special event fundraising or school year e.g. even if it comes in after the date range (by gift date) has passed. Plus, with dated Campaigns you can more easily see all gifts for one period like your operating year. Sometimes the Fund is created new every year and dated as well - but maybe as a transition for your org you could try using the new dated Campaign and the same 'recycled' Fund to start.


You could also report on a group of Appeals, which are almost always dated, but that requires selecting multiple appeals to get the grand total for one operating year (unless you assign an Appeal Category to all appeals for one year. Appeal Category is a filter for Appeals reports.). 

 

Isaac Shalev

Hey Nathan,


It really does depend on exactly how you've set up Funds and Campaigns. If you're using Funds to align closely to finance and the Chart of Accounts, it's likely you'll prefer to toll campaigns annually, and leave Funds as they are. However, if you're in a hierarchical structure, where you treat Funds as strategies or channels within a campaign, you'll want to toll both of them annually, and set goals for each. 

Mary Beth Mosley

Hi Nathan, 

I'm in a similar situation and hoping to get a little clarity on the same topic.  Did you find any other resources through knowledgebase/community that helped with this topic? 

Mary Beth

Alyson Watts

On rereading the original post I wondered if the question/comment is more about reporting than configuration. . . . Do you know you can open a Campaign or Fund record in webview and see a number of great metrics on that Campaign or Fund? You can filter here by date, too, to see only gifts in a certain calendar or fiscal year.