Pros & cons of not using start & end dates for Campaigns, Funds & Appeals

Susan Raymer
Susan Raymer
Eighth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

Hi,

Request by upper management to change structure of campaigns, funds, and appeals from the current FY setup, with start/end dates to perpetual ones without start or end dates. Concerned about effects on all queries, reports, overall data integrity, etc. Looking for information on the pros/cons of such a change. Large database with over 30 year history.

Comments

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

    @Susan Raymer The pros and cons just come down to preference. You will have to change your report structure and query setup going forward, but FY gifts can easily be calculated by gift dates. This does make the CFA structure cleaner and removes FY maintenance (ie. inactivating older CFA, creating new FY CFA). It also removes online giving page maintenance, as those values will stay the same.

    The hardest part is changing your mindset about it. You and your team will have to get comfortable with a new query model, and creating new reports may create some time, but these changes aren't the biggest deal in the world.

    I wouldn't alter the historical gifts, just giving going forward. Granted, this can make reporting on historical gifts much different due to the changes in CFA.

  • Alex Wong
    Alex Wong Community All-Star
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 5 Facilitator 3 bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    @Susan Raymer
    CFAP structure change is a major change. So first what is the reason for this change? There has to be a problem you are trying to solve to warrant this change.

    in my opinion.. having start and end date for CFAP does not make much sense or does it have much benefits.

  • Susan Raymer
    Susan Raymer
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Alex Wong Thank you for your comments. The reason is preference not functionality. I happen to think it keeps CFA much cleaner and neater as they are not neccessarily consistant year to year. Also, the request will be at least somewhat historical. And given the age of the database, plus the fact that we merged with another organization that had an entirely different CFA structure, it will cause significant changes and issues with queries, etc that will take considerable time to readjust accurately.

  • Karen Diener
    Karen Diener Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    @Susan Raymer:

    Hi,

    Request by upper management to change structure of campaigns, funds, and appeals from the current FY setup, with start/end dates to perpetual ones without start or end dates. Concerned about effects on all queries, reports, overall data integrity, etc. Looking for information on the pros/cons of such a change. Large database with over 30 year history.

    Agree that it is largely preference but there is rarely a good reason to set up Funds for each year. I've seen a lot of interesting gift coding though, so won't say “never”, but someone would need to do A LOT of convincing to get me on their side about this.

    My preference is to always annualize your appeals, and maybe annualize your campaigns. I've worked at (and with) organizations who do both. Here are reasons I like annualizing:

    It can be helpful for Campaigns and Appeals because you can set a Goal on the record and very easily track progress to goal in database view and in webview. Year over year reporting is easier too - just compare your FY24 Annual Giving (or whatever) campaign with your FY25 Annual Giving campaign.

    I always use first date of the fiscal year, and last date of the fiscal year for the start and end, which can also create a single query point for finding “all of my FY25 appeals”. This comes in more handy than I would have thought sometimes - for instance, query any appeal with 7/1/2024 as the start date and globally mark it as inactive - but that will vary.

    It can actually help a lot with data integrity because users will not be able to enter a gift using one of those codes if it is outside of the date range. In database view you can configure settings for how to handle these situations, but webview just doesn't allow it. So that is something to think about, but it would never be enough to prevent me from using dates.

    One of the best customer success webinars Blackbaud offered no longer appears in the “view on demand” section of their website, but I have the slide deck here: Campaigns Funds and Appeals.pdf. Hopefully you can access it!

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

    @Susan Raymer:
    And given the age of the database, plus the fact that we merged with another organization that had an entirely different CFA structure, it will cause significant changes and issues with queries, etc that will take considerable time to readjust accurately.

    @Susan Raymer, You can't just add a HUGE monkey wrench like that at the end. LOL. Merging with another organization, and incorporating or assimilating their CFA makes things very difficult.

    Nothing we say is going to change the situation. You were asked by upper management to make the change for whatever reason. Now, a conversation needs to take place. You have laid out an argument that it will cause issues with queries and reporting, and that it would be a strain on staff (hopefully you aren't a staff of one) to retrain and adjust. Hopefully there is a good relationship with management and everyone can come to a quick compromise.

    There are pros and cons to each methodology. Perhaps it is time to determine with management what the best structure going forward.

  • Susan Raymer
    Susan Raymer
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Dariel DixonHi Dariel, Thank you very much for your comments. I agree with your statements. Yes, I am the DBA will be doing all the conversion/adjustments/training of whatever the final outcome may be. It is a very complex database and has taken me a long time to get it into a very functional state of being that it has existed in now for the last few years. Sorry about the "monkey wrench."

  • Susan Raymer
    Susan Raymer
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Karen DienerHi Karen, Thank you for your suggestions. I currently use the FY start/end dates with the start/end dates of C/F/A, always have…. The current request is to eliminate all dates and all references to FY in the names going forward. Hoping a positive discussion will result in at least getting a modification of that portion.

  • Karen Diener
    Karen Diener Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    @Susan Raymer - yeah, I know all I did was preach to the choir. But maybe in doing so - and in sharing the document, you can convince management that annualizing campaigns and appeals is supported by many people in the industry as a best practice!

    IMHO, you could lose some easy reporting ability if you do not annualize.

  • Susan Raymer
    Susan Raymer
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Karen Diener Totally agree - data integrity and ease of extraction are very key components.

  • Elizabeth Johnson
    Elizabeth Johnson Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply All-Star Challenge: End of Year Fundraising Toolkit

    @Karen Diener:
    I always use first date of the fiscal year, and last date of the fiscal year for the start and end, which can also create a single query point for finding “all of my FY25 appeals”. This comes in more handy than I would have thought sometimes - for instance, query any appeal with 7/1/2024 as the start date and globally mark it as inactive - but that will vary.

    It can actually help a lot with data integrity because users will not be able to enter a gift using one of those codes if it is outside of the date range. In database view you can configure settings for how to handle these situations, but webview just doesn't allow it. So that is something to think about, but it would never be enough to prevent me from using dates.

    One of the best customer success webinars Blackbaud offered no longer appears in the “view on demand” section of their website, but I have the slide deck here: Campaigns Funds and Appeals.pdf. Hopefully you can access it!

    Love this tip about the appeals! and for the record the pdf is accessible. Thanks!

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