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Custom Pledge Reminder & Excel Export

Christina Vandagriff

Hello! I am looking to create custom pledge reminders to send in appropriate installments to outstanding pledges. I understand that I do not have to purchase Blackbaud's pre-populated forms to export, but that I can create my own form in Word. What I am stuck on is this: When I run the search through the Mail function, how can I export that data into an excel sheet that I can subsequently use for a mail merge in Word? When I tried to export, I got data that came out looking like it was on a statement, rather than a neatly organized sheet of appropriate columns for the merge.

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Joshua Bekerman

Have you changed the Reminder Type (on top of General tab) to “Create Custom Data File?"

JoAnn Strommen

Once you select Create Custom Data file you have option for even more fields.

For one org I created my own document with the fields we wanted and then even printed letterhead type stock to use for the reminders. Sort of patterned after some of BBs forms. For another, we have a small table with the pledge amount, amount due, etc fields and just merge the data in on generic letterhead.

This can be done both ways right in Mail function - does not need to be taken out to Excel to merge. The merge option there is going to be format to print. The export option will put data in Excel. We run the Excel export to review those pulled and then generate using the Merge option.

IMO, it's smoother to set up your doc in the Word merge wizard and run right in the Mail function.

Faith Murray

We run our reminders in Mail - Acknowledgement letters, through the Word merge Wizard as JoAnn suggested. We used to export into excel all the time for all our letters and merge in Word outside of RE – but it's so much easier using a simple merge within RE. Our reminders are a short thank-you letter at the top, printed on letterhead, with a smaller perforated payment form at the bottom of the page.