Campaigns, Funds, Appeals OH MY!

Kate HodgertFennell

Hello all, I am new and I'm interested how other RENXT clients are structuring their Campaigns in the database. Do you set up general campaigns (e.g. Annual Scholarship Campaign) that you keep open for multiple years or do you prefer specific campaigns (e.g. 2024 Scholarship Campaign) and why? Thanks for your help!

Joe Moretti

@Kate Hodgert-Fennell We stick with general campaigns such as Capital, Endowment and Programmatic (Operating). Since a specific campain such as what you mentioned cab be determined by the funds for such a campaign, we do not feel the need to keep chaning the campaigns. What gets updated are funds that are new and of course appeals. We find that much easier to maintain. But then every organization is different, but most I worked for, we used such model.

Christine Adams

@Kate Hodgert-Fennell
Our funds are directly tied to our Finance GL.

Appeals are changed each year and are for all solicitations, invitations, communications, emails etc. And we have a specific naming convention.

Campaigns are also changed each year - start with YY and then either bequest, planned gift intention, restricted, endowment, expense (not tax-deductible), unrestricted, special project funds. This is so if there is a pledge in FY23 and we get a payment in this current fiscal year we don't change the campaign and know what is considered “raised” this fiscal year.

We don't tie appeals or campaigns to funds and vice versa.

JoAnn Strommen

@Kate Hodgert-Fennell Welcome to the BB Community.

As you can already see by the replies this structure is done differently from org to org. One question to ask is how do you anticipate pulling data? I know that can be tough when new to know.

Previous org we had campaigns for each capital campaign/building project. Gifts covered multiple years. However, we had separate campaign for each annual campaign as gift dates went from fall of year 1 to spring of year 3. The fund was the same for each so this was how we needed to record data to pull as we were receiving $ for more than one annual campaign during a calendar year.

Current org I found only used campaigns for their capital building projects. So when there was not a campaign in progress old gifts do not have a campaign code. Currently, we are in a major capital fundraising campaign with multiple funds/pillars. Everything coming in is recorded under one campaign name and filtered out to various pillars like building, scholarships, programs…
This has worked well as we can run report for the campaign and all gifts are pulled or we can run reports based on funds.

You may find this knowledgebase article helpful if you haven't seen it:

1. Knowledgebase
2. Article
3. 41950

What are campaigns, funds, and appeals?

In The Raiser's Edge, we can track campaigns, funds, and appeals and attribute gifts to them. This solution discusses the differences between campaigns, funds, and appeals and best practices for using these records.

Austen Brown

@Kate Hodgert-Fennell - Check out this recent webinar, it walks you through the best way to set up Campaign, Funds, Appeals, and Packages within RE (plus the pros/cons for the different methods):

Karen Diener

@Kate Hodgert-Fennell I would also recommend a webinar that Blackbaud presented a couple of years ago. Even though less recent than the one Austen mentioned (which I have not yet watched) it isn't the kind of information or functionality that will change over time.

I've worked in databases that annualized Campaigns and those that did not. There are tradeoffs and you'll need to pick what works for you. In the systems I've seen, I honestly would ballpark it as 50/50 in terms of who annualizes and who doesn't. The biggest problems I see tend to be with Funds and Appeals!

Kate HodgertFennell

@Joe Moretti Thanks so much! Really appreciate your perspective.

Kate HodgertFennell

@Christine Adams Interesting! Thanks so much, Christine.

Kate HodgertFennell

@JoAnn Strommen This is all great! Thanks, JoAnn.

Kate HodgertFennell

@Austen Brown Oooo, awesome. I'll check this out today.

Kate HodgertFennell

@Karen Diener Super helpful - will watch today!