Best Practices : Getting fundraisers to consistently enter actions

Courtney Claypoole

Good Morning!

Are there any organizations out there who have struggled and overcome the challenge of having all staff consistently enter actions into your database when they interact with a constituent after a long history of not entering that info into the database? I'm wondering what best practices you implemented that worked for you and your team!

Dariel Dixon

This is one of the million dollar questions. I've often felt this is a change in workflow, and often a change in organizational culture. And as the saying goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”.

You've got to get buy-in from all of the stakeholders. It's got to get something mandated from management. And it's got to be enforced. Once the fundraisers understand the need and see how this will make their lives easier, they will adapt (hopefully). This change does need to be signed off from above to see any lasting behavior change. You do need to be patient, as old habits die slowly.

I think it is often worth looking at the organizational culture, and asking is this change going to actually take hold. Are the places in alignment for this to happen? There have been many changes that we all would like to make, but for various reasons, the timing isn't right.

JoAnn Strommen

Even at an org that has had webview/NXT for some time it can still be an issue. As Dariel Dixon‍ said buy in needs to be from the top. Encourage completing actions as part of job descriptions - add accountability.


We've had some turn over - used that as a reason for recording. Fundraiser A, you're now inheriting these former prospects of Fundraiser B - how important is it to have the notes and actions on those records?

Put actions on now. If you don't have time now, it's not too likely you'll have time next week, next month or in the 3 days before you retire/leave the org.


Do what you can to make it easier for them. I shared the BB Outlook link with our development staff - they can click and save the email received or their reply with just a couple clicks. We have a spread sheet that can be used for global adds, when all the info is the same to go on records regarding a contact made. They can complete and provide to me and I add action globally. (Constituent ID field is key to creating quick query of records to update.)


Just a couple thoughts...

Faith Murray

Sometimes the challenge isn't so much the staff as the leadership and other individuals who make donor contact on behalf of development. Your CEO often isn't going to enter in actions. Neither will your volunteers. They will simply say at your meetings, “Oh yes, I met with that person at a dinner last month.” And certain technology-challenged staffers may have genuine difficulty entering data consistently despite their stellar people skills on the ground. So - unfortunately - sometimes you have to make a strategic judgement on whether data expectations are realistic, and then assign a data worker to perform upkeep on behalf of those individuals.

That being said, I'm a big advocate for getting those development staffers who are competent, to enter their own actions. And as Dariel said, it requires back-up from your Director, as well as a little peer pressure. Peer pressure can be achieved when you:

• Create a Dashboard or auto-generated report that indicates how many actions/Notes each fundraiser has created per month. This report should be copied to the fundraiser as well as your Director each month, for “accuracy review” purposes.
• Bring a list of actions, or a summary report of Notes, to your monthly major gifts meeting where stakeholders collaborate on strategy discussions. Or, have your Director bring it in your stead.

Emphasis on adding Actions/Notes must be balanced with an understanding that quantity does not equal quality in a fundraiser's performance. But, I've observed that a little healthy competition goes a long way. ?

Carrie Aranda

While we still have a ways to go with some of our fundraisers, we have made a lot of headway in getting them to enter their own actions. It definitely is a culture shift and that takes time. There are three things that I credit with helping change the culture.

The first was the move to web view. We made that move almost 5 years ago and have done a ton of training with our fundraisers. They are responsible for keeping the constituent records in their portfolio up to date. Because of budget constraints, we have not had a data entry person for 2 years and leadership stressed the importance of fundraisers entering in their own actions and opportunities and assisting with keeping constituent data current.

The second was the Outlook add-in that allows emails to be saved as actions directly from Outlook. I think at least 75% of our actions are email based and this introduced them to how easy and helpful it is to have actions on records.

The third is what has taken the most time and energy but has paid off the most. I found the fundraisers who could be “power users”. These were the ones who were open to finding easier ways to do things, were not afraid of the database and were willing to be my “guinea pigs” on several projects. I have 3 of them that consistently put everything in the database, utilize lists and, in general, rely on the database. They are the ones who have shifted the culture. Now, when something happens and it is not recorded, they are the first ones to say “that is why we put in actions”. It has put more voices (different voices) into the conversation. Think of it as the good kind of peer pressure. They even routinely call out our boss for not putting in his actions!

Amy Dana

It also helps if actions/contact reports are part of the metrics they are being evaluated on. That way you can put together a Query/Report to show how many Actions an Opportunities each fundraiser has started and completed during a specific amount of time so it's obvious who's falling behind.

This only works if it's one or two people having issues. If nobody is keeping up then that's when you need more buy-in from leadership, unless they're ok with a board member finding that report and having to explain why it looks like nobody is making any contacts.

Aldera Chisholm

Some great points here. I have found buy-in increased when we showed the metrics to the entire team at our monthly meetings, and I would make the note each time “If you feel your number isn't where you think it is, perhaps you aren't entering all your actions - let me know if you want to do a refresher training!”. We also reviewed and pared down our action types so that they were easy to choose from for the MM. Finally, we implemented the Google-NXT plug in so that they could add actions directly from their emails - that one was a game-changer as now they just habitually click to add actions right from their inbox.