Campaigns, Events, and Coding

by Larry Weaver

In the case study of Gilda’s Club, Debra makes some good points about events and sub-events, and about coding defaults. Both of these subjects are important to understand, so here is bit more detail.  In the Campaign Management console In FundRaiser Professional, Campaigns are comprised of events.  Events may be standalone affairs, or they may be comprised of sub-events.  Any campaign or event can be associated with default gift codes (Fund, Motivation, Purpose) to make gift entry more consistent.

An Event could be anything you do to raise funds or promote your organization or its mission.

• An appeal letter
• A newsletter,
• A physical event (walkathon, rally, gala dinner)
• A separate fundraising effort like Foundations, Grants, Memorials, etc.

although many organizations do not see these as “events” per se. 

The important thing to remember about events is that, for the most part, they are separate happenings which generate revenue as well as expense, and it can be helpful to track them separately.  Some events may fall into a “category” of event which you want to track as a whole, such as “all appeal letters” or “all seminars” or, as with Gilda’s Club, “third party sponsored events”.  In order to make sure you track each event separately, but are able to view all similar events as a whole, you’ll need to create the “Event” to cover the view of the whole, while creating the “Sub-Events” under it to view the results of each individual event.  In an example of appeal letters, for instance, we might start with an Event call “Appeal Letters”.  Then, under that event, we would set up Sub-Events for each or our subsequent individual appeal letters, so that our campaign list might look something like this:

Annual Campaign 2008-2009

    Appeal Letters
        Fall 08 Appeal
        Winter 08 Appeal
        Spring 09 Appeal
        Summer 09 Appeal

    Newsletters
        Aug 08 News
        Nov 08 News
        Feb 09 News
        May 09 News
    Golf Event
    Gala Dinner
    Walkathon

This way, each appeal letter can be viewed as a separate happening, while the results of all appeal letters combined will be reflected in the Appeal Letters event.  We would not enter any gifts or other figures directly into the Appeal Letters event, as it is just used as a “cover” event to include all the sub-events we need.  

In the case study , Debra mentions using the “code set up feature.” She is referring to the capability in the Campaign Management section to have Gift codes directly associated with events.  In the Coding & Spare Fields training, we learn that there are 3 primary Gift Codes:  Motivation, Fund, and Purpose.  These codes generally refer to the reason a person gave the gift (motivation), the account into which we have deposited the money (fund), and the way our organization intends to use the money (purpose).  With any event (or campaign, for that matter), you have the ability to set default gift codes when entering a gift that came in as a result of that event.  In order for FundRaiser to fill out the gift based on the event you choose, you just need to make those defaults a part of the event when you set it up.  The Event setup page allows you to enter a name for the event, and some other information, but there is another tab, labeled “Codes/Setup”, that allows you to set default codes.  

I recommend that when you setting up your events within your campaign that you NOT use any defaults for an event that is made up of sub-events, but DO set defaults for standalone events and for those sub-events that are a part of an event.  Usually the Motivation code will be enough (to indicate that a gift was given as a direct result of the event), but sometimes you might have events where the monies raised are to be used specifically for one thing or another, in which case you’ll probably want to set up a default Purpose code to define that use.

Part of the Campaign Management section helps automate gift entry, too.  For each event, you can specify not only when the event is going to be held, but also how long after the event you expect to receive gifts as a direct result of that event.  This is considered the Gift Life Span of the event.  If you have established gift life spans for events, then, under the Options | Modules | Campaigns section, you can have FundRaiser automatically fill in the appropriate Event information on a gift, based on the events’ life cycle and the events’ gift life span.  This, too, will help you to be more consistent with data entry.

Gilda’s Club is a wonderful example of how FundRaiser can help with keeping all the various facts and figures sorted out, so that people in the organization can view them in ways that benefit future planning and current accountability.   If you want more information on the Campaign Management section, consider attending a live webinar .  

Larry Weaver is the FundRaiser Training Manager. He's worked in and around computers since the working as a Navy sonar technician in the late 1960's. His passion is operations, whether operating sonar gear, computers, guitars, motorcycles, or any other motorized vehicle. He's applied his  passion to FundRaiser's Training   department, holding live web training sessions and recording training CD's on various FundRaiser Software related topics.

Resources

Gilda's Club of Western Pennsylvania

Campaign Management Console in FundRaiser