Appeal Category Configuration

Nathan Munn

Because of how #NXT reporting leverages Campaign/Fund/Appeal categories I'm working to determine the best possible approach to appeal categories for my organization. I'm interested to know what others have found to work well, in particular considering the increasing role of "campaigns" initiated/organized by third parties such as community foundations or individuals (giving days, Facebook fundraisers, crowdfunding campaigns, etc.). I want to categorize appeals for these in such a way that they are distinct from appeals for internal fundraising efforts such as direct mail and special events. Here is my current working list.


Direct mail - all bulk print communications except for event materials (i.e. appeals & newsletters)

Electronic - all online giving through our website as well as bulk email communication (except for events)

Event - all gifts and communications for special events hosted by our organization (i.e. galas, golf outings, friend-raisers - anything we do to involve supporters which includes a program/agenda and is scheduled for a particular date and time)

Third Party Campaigns - Facebook fundraisers, United Way workplace campaigns, crowdfunding, giving days by community foundations

Individual Engagement - personal outreach/solicitation whether face-to-face, letter, phone, email, proposal/application. Also peer-to-peer.

Marketing & Publicity - advertising, press coverage, PSAs

Unsolicited

Heather MacKenzie

I think you've made a great start! Let your appeals help define your categories for you. If you have a ton of event appeals, (I know, bad example, you already have this one) make an events category.


What are your reporting needs? What does your office want queried all the time?

Nathan Munn

Historically we actually haven't done a lot of robust reporting on our direct mail results. That's something I want to change and I'm hoping that having an intuitive category structure available to NXT users will help to encourage it. The things I'm calling "third-party campaigns" are what really seem to be growing (with the exception of UW) as technology enables more organic, grass-roots outreach. And they have become a fixture in our fundraising/communication plans in a way that they weren't just a few years ago. I am now receiving requests for reports on the results of both traditional DM and these third-party campaigns. And there has been some question as to whether or not we should consider them events - which is why I have such detail in my event category definition. So my main area of interest is how others are handling the third-party things. Just in case there's a better way to group them. If not, is there a better name for that category?

Tom Klimchak

Nathan Munn‍, I like your categories better than the ones we have now ?


We have a very similar system, though in recent years we have added some department granularity like this:


Direct Mail - Alumni

Direct Mail - Athletics

Direct Mail - General


But, really, it all depends on how you want to report on your progress..

Melissa Lide

We use similar buckets and naming conventions to reflect the appeal category. For example, DFY21FallLapsed is the appeal code for the FY21 Direct Mail Fall lapsed mailing.


For non-primary fundraisers, we often use SOther for gifts solicited by a non-fundraiser.


Also, something else to think through is the cross-channel appeals - we get into this a lot with Day of Giving. Ultimately, we bucket Day of Giving appeals as an event; crowdfunding is a separate category for us. It's not ideal but that cross-channel stuff can get tricky.