Campaigns are groups of events
In the blog about of Gilda’s Club, Debra makes some good points about events and sub-events. This is 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. This is how it looks
Campaign
o Event 1
§ Subevent 1
§ Subevent 2
o Event 2
§ Subevent 1
§ Subevent 2
Not all events are attended affairs
A campaign would be some large intiative like a Capital Campaign or Annual Fundraising Campaign. 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)
This is how it might look with your campaigns set up
Annual Campaign 2008-2009
o Appeal Letters
§ Fall 08 Appeal
§ Winter 08 Appeal
§ Spring 09 Appeal
§ Summer 09 Appeal
o Newsletters
§ Aug 08 News
§ Nov 08 News
§ Feb 09 News
§ May 09 News
o Golf Event
o Gala Dinner
o Walkathon
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.
Events can be comprised of Sub-Events
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”. 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.
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 my next blog we'll explore this in more detail.
More Detail, next time...
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 .