Short take: Using Category Codes For Better Donor Targeting

Most organizations deal with a range of donors and sometimes clients who may be interested in different things from your organization. A nonprofit healthcare clinic, for example, may have physicians and staff (even if they are all volunteers), patients, friends and family of patients, as well as those who simply wish to sponsor free or affordable healthcare.

Each group will respond differently to appeals. For example, patients may wish to “pay back” some of the care that was received. Friends and family may give so that those they care about continue to receive care, and sponsors may want to know how many people their dollars helped.

The question becomes, how do you know which group a donor belongs to and how do you target them effectively with appeal letters? The answer? Category codes.

In FundRaiser Software, our three versions offer unlimited category codes for your donors. Found on the codes tab, category codes are an excellent way to track the nongiving aspects of your donors lives. For example, by adding a category code of SPONSOR to those who wish to sponsor the care of others, you’ll create a group of people which can quickly be included in reports, groupings, and mass mailings. A code of FRIEND or FAMILY will capture those who have a relationship with a patient.

Because category codes are easy to include or exclude from reports, mailings, and groupings, they are excellent to use to help your donor targeting. In fact, if you have donors in a grouping, with our FundRaiser Select and Professional versions, you’ll be able to automatically add category codes to those donors.

If you have questions about codes in FundRaiser,  sign up for our next Coding & Spare Fields class. You can see when classes are scheduled by checking the calendar on the Training page of our website.