Okay, so we know we should plan ahead: for events, for gift-thank-you letters, for change, forever. But in order to make the best plans, we have to know how to use the tools at hand. And one of the least understood “tools” of FundRaiser may be “Codes”. There are many different codes; all different, all similar, most editable, some mandatory. Is there an easy way to get a handle on them all?
From my perspective, a code is nothing more than a “unique identifier”. You might think of a code as a tag, a flag, an attribute, a descriptor, or any one of many nouns, but, in the end, a code is nothing more than a way to mark records in a special way so that you can easily gather together similar records.
When you have an event, for instance, you may want to “code” everyone you invite to the event. In the case of an appeal letter, which is an “event” in itself, you may want to “code” recipients of the letter. You’ll want to “code” all the gifts that are given as a result of the event. If the money donated at an event is ear-marked for a particular part of your mission, that, too, is something that you’ll want to “code”. In other words, you’ll want to know who was asked, who responded, why a gift was given, how the gift is to be used, and so on.
So the following little chart may help you when trying to decide what codes you need, and what codes you want, based on how FundRaiser defines their usage.
Codes Tab
Category Codes
Non-Gift aspects of people's lives (hobbies, work, life situations, etc.)
Donor Type
Breakdown of Account Type, primarily for organizations
Donor Source
point of first contact
Donor Solicitor
(generally used with major donors)
Gift Record
Mode
method of payment (determines monetary/inkind)
Motivation
usually an event; why the gift was given
Fund
bank account into which the money is deposited
Purpose
how the money is to be used (for restricted/designated use funds)
These codes, when used consistently, will allow pulling information from the program, and viewing it in different ways, using different Groupings of people and various report formats. Between coding and the other “hard” data stored (date & amount of gift; name & address & phones of donor/prospect) any combination of people or gifts needed for reporting purposes can be pulled together easily.
Of course, you may want to view the Coding & Spare Fields training video available in the Customer Portal section of our website, or sign up for a live webinar on the subject, but whatever you do, don’t be intimidated by codes in FundRaiser, as they will become your best friends once you’ve gotten to know them a little better.