Campaigns and Funds - Best Practices

Natalie Yarnal
Natalie Yarnal
Sixth Anniversary Participant Blackbaud Certified
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
Our organization is currently using Raiser's Edge 7 but will be moving to Raiser's Edge NXT in the next couple of months. In the time leading up to this change I am doing some database housekeeping and also looking at making sure we are following best practices as far as our utilization of campaigns, funds, etc.


Would anyone be willing to share how they use these? While I think we're on the right track, our system is not currently set up to where we can easily run reports on campaigns/funds - any reports that need to be run right now either  have to be pieced together by the DBA (who is me) or exported into Excel and manipulated to show the correct information. In a perfect world I would like to also utilize the campaign and fund goals to track our fundraising efforts (we are currently not set up this way).


Thank you all for your help! I know RENXT is similar to RE7, but if you also have any hints or tips in regards to this changeover it is much appreciated!


A quick overview of how we utilize RE:
  • We are a zoo and currently use Raiser's Edge to record memberships and all fundraising efforts (individual donations, corporate sponsorships, etc.)
  • We use Gateway's Galaxy ticketing system for all of our ticket sales and will be moving our front gate and online membership sales to this system - currently we sell memberships directly through Raiser's Edge or utilizing a third-party ecommerce site.
    • We will utilize Omatic software to move any membership transaction data from Galaxy/eGalaxy to Raiser's Edge.

Comments

  • Dariel Dixon
    Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management

    Thank you all for your help! I know RENXT is similar to RE7, but if you also have any hints or tips in regards to this changeover it is much appreciated!


    A quick overview of how we utilize RE:

    • We are a zoo and currently use Raiser's Edge to record memberships and all fundraising efforts (individual donations, corporate sponsorships, etc.)
    • We use Gateway's Galaxy ticketing system for all of our ticket sales and will be moving our front gate and online membership sales to this system - currently we sell memberships directly through Raiser's Edge or utilizing a third-party ecommerce site.
      • We will utilize Omatic software to move any membership transaction data from Galaxy/eGalaxy to Raiser's Edge.

     

    I think we can dispel the myth that NXT is similar to RE7. They are the same application at the core.  So everything you do in RE7 will still be available in the database view.  The things that may change are usually due to hosting.


    In regards to campaigns and funds...Our organization based our funds off of the accounting structure, with some exceptions.  Generally, if there is a fund in our database, there's a corresponding fund on the accounting side.  We don't create funds for everything in accounting (Ain't nobody got time for that ® Sweet Brown), but we do work in close contact with them to get new funds created.  Our campaigns are based on the type of fundraising we are doing.  We have an annual campaign for annual gifts, capital campaign for capital projects, etc.


    Most of the gifts we receive are annual.  And most of our memberships are annual as well.


    There's no way of making a suggestion without knowing what the current structure is though.  Why is your current structure inadequate and inoperative?  If your structure isn't working for your reporting at all, there definitely need to be some changes.

  • Nate Laning
    Nate Laning
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
    Like you, Natalie, we're transitioning from RE7 to RENXT. As part of this move, I've been rebuilding our campaign structure, because I want to take full advantage of the stock reports in NXT. Since we're a college, we look at things a bit differently, but some thoughts might be translatable. Like Dariel answered, our funds are tied to the Financial Edge accounts, so I'm not changing them too much. I did realize, however, that many of our funds could be grouped into larger categories -- the campaigns. For us, that meant creating campaigns for the larger areas we fundraise for: academics, athletics, buildings/capital projects, scholarships, etc.


    Other community members have given me the idea of setting up each campaign for each fiscal year. That will provide us with Athletics FY21, Athletics FY22, etc. Each campaign will have a goal that we can track, with portions of the goal assigned to our gift officers. And in future years, we will be able to compare each campaign to see how they performed year over year.


    Right now, I'm still in the planning phase. It's a significant change for us! But my testing is going well from a reporting standpoint, and we'll see how it works out.

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