RE Campaign when not running a campaign

JoAnn Strommen · December 10

We are just finishing up a multi-year $100M+ campaign. This campaign name has been used for all gifts in the past 5 years and will continue to appear on pledge installments and likely recurring gifts, too.

We do not anticipate another comprehensive capital campaign for several years. So, what have you done or suggest we do for coding gifts during the interim?

It has been suggested a "FY26 Annual Campaign" thru June and then FY27 and so on.

While reporting the past years has been easy to filter on campaign, I'm reluctant to have a 6-month campaign name and then another. Thinking there would be a better option. I don't want to not have a campaign on gift records as we have lots of historic gifts without and then we would need to be adding date filters to every query/report/export.

What have you done? Positives and negatives?

Alex Wong · December 10

We do not use Campaign with date implication. I find it better to use gift date filter to know exactly how much come in by date/month/quarter/year. This also avoided issue with gift split, when you are simply trying to report on gift in a period of time.

Lena Payne · December 10

We mostly use two campaigns - Restricted and Unrestricted as we have different funds that people donate to (so it would be Restricted) and a general fund (unrestricted).

Alex Wong · December 10

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/309254#Comment_309254

not trying to be __________ (fill in the blank as you see fits) here, as I have also inherited similar Campaign usage. (i.e. Campaign as "umbrella" grouping of funds). We have since change how we use Campaign (we have 25 chapters operating nationally, so Campaign is each chapter, i.e. New York Campaign)

For what you said, the Fund record's "Is Restricted=Yes/No" flag should handle this well. You can re-use Campaign for other needs, if there are any.

Lena Payne · December 10

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/309260#Comment_309260

Yes I understand, but we don't have any other needs for Campaigns bc I think what you use as Campaigns we put under Appeals.

Bill Connors · December 10

If you have a copy of my book on RE, JoAnn, a significant portion of chapter 1 addresses campaigns for use in non-campaign years.

JoAnn Strommen · December 10

@Bill Connors 🤔 Had a copy at previous org but don't have one here. Will see about getting.

Carlene Johnson · December 10

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/309265#Comment_309265

JoAnn - I just ordered another copy as I can't find either of the two other copies I've purchased in the past! 🤦‍♀️

Joe Moretti · December 10

When we have a long major campaign, then we have a name for that campaign, but it may not be for all gifts. When we do not have a major campaign, we use campaigns such as Operating, Endowment, Capital since our organization reports off of those buckets. It depends on what you tend to report on that may have you name a campaign when you do not have a major campaign. Again, every ORG is different.

RE Campaign when not running a campaign

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