Best Practices Question: Where to put webinar registration and planned giving mailing information

Jane Van Ingen

Happy Monday, everyone.


I actually have two questions:


I am working on a planned giving mailing and want to note who received that mailing. It's not really an appeal. Which would be better: an action or attribute?


We are also hosting several Zoom webinars in the new year and I want to track who attended. Should that be an action or an attribute? (We don't have the special events module because we don't do fundraising events.)


Thanks!


Jane


Jane Van Ingen

Research to Prevent Blindness

JoAnn Strommen

My vote would be action. While mailings recorded in actions may tend to be more personal than large scale I think I'd opt for that option.  For me, we have so, so many things already recorded in attributes that really meet the definition of an attribute. 


We also did a planned giving Zoom presentation recently. I recorded it as a meeting action with location Zoom on the records of those who attended. I would suggest action for that as well. It also provides a few more fields for info like as part of my global add I had notes with title, host and notes of panelists.


Just one opinion.

Dan Snyder

Between action and attribute, I would say action as well.


However, we actually use appeals for our planned giving mailings mostly for the reasons JoAnn Strommen‍ mentioned. They are not personal outreach (action) and it doesn't seem to fit our definition of an attribute. Also, while most of these mailings/emails are not direct appeals we can apply the appeal if someone lets us know of an intention following one of the messages.


As others have said before, the key with whatever you decide is to be consistent.

Jane Van Ingen

Thank you, Dan. That was helpful!


Jane

Jane Van Ingen

Thank you JoAnn! That was helpful.


Jane

Austen Brown

I agree with the responses so far, for the PG mailing.  With the Zoom webinar if you tracked through the event module you could record invited vs attended and have all the event details recorded in a central location.

Jane Van Ingen

Austen:


Thanks for the feedback,


Jane