What's in an Acronym?
In Kim Klein's blog article this month, she explains what the term LYBUNT means, which is a good thing, but there is another that is used in FundRaiser we need to know, too: SYBUNT. SYBUNT is similar to LYBUNT, but reaches further into a lapsed donor's past. A SYBUNT has given "Some Year But Not This". You can find both of these terms scattered throughout FundRaiser: in the "WHO" section of reports and mass mailings (in the "MasterFile" dropdown), the "Common Patterns" section of creating a Grouping, and elsewhere. They are just easier ways to describe certain donor situations.
Precisely, Generally Speaking
Once you know the definitions, you may run into another situation due to the business world view that there are two distinct types of years: calendar and fiscal (which FundRaiser calls "Reporting" year). FundRaiser's Reporting year is, by default, set to the calendar year, but can be changed to coincide with the fiscal year your organization uses for accounting purposes. It's changed in the Options, General, Printing menu, and requires that you set the beginning month of the yearly period you want to consider for your Reporting year. Be aware that, if you make a change here, you will need to run the Rebuild Statistics Page Data utility (in the Utilities menu) in order to make certain all the yearly totals reflect your reporting year, and that people are able to be put properly in their LYBUNT and SYBUNT places.
Cultivating the donor garden: tend the producers
As Kim mentions, those who have given are the best prospects for future giving. It just makes good sense to ask those who have shown an interest in supporting your work to continue to support it. FundRaiser gives you ways to easily pull out lists of donors, and those who have given but not recently, using the LYBUNT and SYBUNT industry standards. It may not be obvious, but all LYBUNTs are also SYBUNTs, so don't think of them as distinctly different groups of donors. For users who want to learn more on how to target your donors, based on any criteria kept in FundRaiser, view the Groupings training video in the Customer Portal section of our website.