Opportunities fields

Rachel Kave

Hi Community!


Hope you are all staying safe and well.  Wanted to ask if anyone could provide feedback or comment on how they use Purpose in Opportunity tile.  We have tried to use it for campaign as campaigns end then we need end it and create new.  We also had a catch all of Specific Purpose/Project but that seems to broad.


Looking forward to hearing from you and thanks in advance.


Best

Rachel

 

Kate Hudson

I'm also curious how people do this.


We are in the process of integrating with FE NXT and have a kick off meeting next week so I wonder if that will bring clarity - like should they mirror (RE) Fund and (FE) Projects, or T-codes?

Karen Diener

I haven't worked with an organization that used this all that strategically, but have definitely seen entries such as "Annual Support", "Capital Campaign" or "Program Enhancements".  Think about how you might need to group your proposals and this may help.  One organization I worked with was in the midst of a long campaign with various phases / initiatives, so the purpose was specific to the funding initiative.  If you don't have any sort of campaign taking place, Annual Support would seem just fine to me.


It doesn't interface at all with Finance, so I don't think I would spend too much time trying to make it match up to FE in any way.  It is purely for Development purposes.


Karen

Courtney RoyBranigan

Hello,


We use it for quarterly goal setting as our org has multiple sites who all manage an annual campaign (by site). It seems to be a helpful internal tool for the staff at the moment. 


Best,

CRB

Aldera Chisholm

We use purpose as the "interest area" for the donor. So for us, the campaign could be Annual Giving, and the Purpose would be Seniors Programming and the Fund will reflect where the actual cash will go when it is fully decided. 


My theory on every field is.... fill it in so that it can answer the questions you will have later.  I look at the report I want to produce first, then move backward to figuring out how to track my data in a way that comes out with a nice report. I am trying to use Opportunities to create a monthly report that we review with our fundraisers and our director - the Purpose field helps group the Opportunities so we can get some rough idea of the direction that asks are going, and see gaps. 


Long story short - Purpose is a great multi-purpose field that you can use to customize without it having impact on finance, etc.  (Edit, I can't believe I said Purpose is a multi-purpose field. Sigh.)


 

Rachel Kave

Thanks everyone-appreciate the insight!