Tax Letters in Raiser's Edge

Ally Nauer · December 2023

We moved from e-Tapestry earlier this year. E-Tapestry seemed to have more customizable options for tax letters and formatting. I could create a query/report, then use that in a very nice customized letter that emailed the people with emails and exported the rest into a Word document.

I've taken the Raiser's Edge class on Year-End Prep. The solutions in Raiser's Edge are simply too simplistic for our needs (especially the Giving Statements in Webview) and what we've done in the past with e-Tapestry. We need to be able to customize it for our donors and to go past Fund. Is my only option to export a list via Database View? Then, try to use mail merge with all the constituents and their many gifts? If so, I am unable to email at all through RE. The ability to do that in e-Tap was critical for efficiency. I'll have to email each person individually, most likely, as well. Does anyone have a workaround I'm missing? I hope better solutions are in the works for Raiser's Edge.

Miki Martin · December 2023

@Ally Nauer there is a thread from January 2023, end-of-year tax statements, you could review. I am not sure if Dariel's solution would work for you since you're wanting to email them. You can still build a static query and then base a List in web view on it to send emails. If you're wanting to create specific tax statement letters I am not sure if you can do that through the donation letters in web view. I do not currently have access to a working database so I cannot look up that to be sure.

If you are familiar with Power Automate I know you would be able to send emails that way that would be specific. You can reference this blog, Can Power Automate Really Help Me?, for lots of great information on that topic. It may be a little too much for this year.

I know when my now former org switched from eTap to RE NXT they had some growing pains. I never used eTap so I could not relate but I think once you really get into the Lists and then queries and reports in database view you will find you can actually do a lot more; it's just different. And Blackbaud is working hard to bring a lot of the database view options to web view.

Good luck! Hope this helps!

Christine Robertson · December 2023

@Ally Nauer Can you provide a bit more detail as to what you need in your yearend statements that you cannot do with the Giving Statements in webview so that we can make more specific suggestions?

Ally Nauer · December 2023

@Christine Robertson We need to include an actual letter with their gift data and list the appeal for the gifts. We also separate in-kind from monetary donations. We also have people with emails and people without.

Ally Nauer · December 2023

@Miki Martin I saw that thread and it wasn't extremely helpful. I suppose I'll have to do everything manually - Edit the exports, use mail merge in Word, email, or mail individually. Yes, RE does more in some ways, but it also has less capability in other ways. I hope Webview catches up to e-Tap in several aspects in future updates.

Christine Robertson · December 2023

@Ally Nauer I really wish there was some customization with the Giving Statements. Even being able to add the Appeal or Campaign would be helpful for a lot of organizations. I think you will have to determine what options will best meet your needs.

That said, one thing you may want to look at is Letter Box from Red Arc. I don't know if you could achieve what you want to do with their free version, but I think it might be possible with the paid option. That would only help with the records that have email addresses, but if that is a significant need for your organization, it might be worth the investment if it helps you meet your objectives.

Ally Nauer · December 2023

@Christine Robertson I'll have to check it out - Thanks!

Devan Bessinger · December 2023

@Ally Nauer We are in the same boat. There is good news and bad news. The bad news is… you're correct. You won't really be able to generate what you're wanting out of RE. The good news is… you can email out of a Microsoft Word mail merge through your Microsoft Outlook. Just add the donor's email address to the output of your export. In Word, there is an option to send an email. There are a few things to note though.

It will send from your Outlook. If you want the emails to come from a specific email address (like “NoReply@YourOrg.com”), you'll need to log your personal profile out of Outlook and log into a profile with just that email address. Your IT department should be able to help and/or you should be able to Google how to do it.
Not sure how many you will be sending, but Microsoft does have limits on how many outgoing emails you can send. I think it's 10,000 per rolling 24-hour period. You might want to check your # of emails (may need to send them in waves if you have a lot).

Ally Nauer · December 2023

@Devan Caton That's definitely on my list to do a test to see how the Outlook email from Word could look! Glad to know I'm not the only one in the boat!

Henrietta Hawkins · December 2023

@Ally Nauer if it's any help our app Letter Box enables you to send out giving summaries via email. Let me know if you’d like more info. Or just check it out on the Marketplace.

Henrietta

Austen Brown · December 2023

@Ally Nauer - Echoing @Miki Martin this is absolutely possible through Power Automate. While it's unlikely to be a solution for this year's tax letters it is definitely something you should look into for next year. If you are interested but don't want to go through the trouble of learning Power Automate yourself, there are BB partners that can help - check out AutomateGenius for more information.

Tax Letters in Raiser's Edge

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