Adding Tribute Data without the Tribute Module

Tyyne Parakhen

Curious to hear any best practices for inputting and tracking tribute gift information when you don't have or use the Tribute module. Thanks!

Christine Cooke

@Tyyne Parakhen
Without the Tribute Module you can utilize Gift Attributes or tribute gifts. You can establish an attribute for each component of the tribute. IHO Name, IMO Name, Addressee to Notify, Salutation to Notify, Address to Notify, City to Notify, State to Notify, Zip to Notify.

Those Gift Attribute can also be exported to merge into a letter.

Joni Mraz

@Christine Cooke bCREPro
Wondering if a lot of people do it this way - we have the Tribute Module and in some ways it is cumbersome / not user friendly.

Karen Stuhlfeier

@Joni Mraz It works really well if you learn how to use it properly - for both acknowledgement purposes and for pulling lists for annual reports.

Lucy Ruiz

@Tyyne Parakhen @Tyyne Parakhen 1) Reporting to the family and internally is also simplified by having the module. Your organization will need to create a report to mimic that lists donors to a specific tribute. 2) when using attributes for the tributee's name, this table will need to be cleaned up regularly i.e. you may have Grandma Brown and Mrs. Brown as a tribute's name depending on how the individual was addressed by their loved ones. 2) create an export to list donor names for the family, most organizations do not include the gift amount. 3) adding giving to donor walls if your organization has this practice. 4) communications with donors and next of kin to ensure the donation made IHO/IMO was noted.

Tyyne Parakhen

@Karen Stuhlfeier @Joni Mraz We actually do have the module and use it, but I don't believe we do any reporting on tributes. We only pull a list of tributes about once a month to give to leadership. The reason I wonder if we could get around using the module is that it requires us to run an extra import profile when bringing in gifts from our fundraising platform, which is taking up a lot of time. If we used gift attributes instead, we could just run one import profile.

Lucy Ruiz

@Tyyne Parakhen Your logic is sound in try to explore what limitations you might encounter. I would say the limitations are minimal.

Christine Cooke

@Joni Mraz Hmm, dunno. The fabulous Bill Connors taught me this Gift Attribute way of doing it as an alternative. Most of the places I've been have not had the tribute module.

Joni Mraz

@Karen Stuhlfeier:

@Joni Mraz It works really well if you learn how to use it properly - for both acknowledgement purposes and for pulling lists for annual reports.

We use it properly, but find it tedious.