Campaigns, Funds, Appeals OH MY!

@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.

@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.

@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!