There are many steps and terms to keep track of when working with Fundraising. In order to support you, we have gathered some important terms and best practice based on our experience and our Fundraising Solution Mira Fundraising Management.
Campaign
Campaign is the overall level. Every potential major gift opportunity and gifts need to be linked to a campaign. When conducting fundraising through a campaign, it is possible to create a campaign with a campaign name. If you do not conduct fundraising through a campaign, add a campaign and name it “Ongoing Fundraising”, without deadlines.
Need
Needs are identified needs or projects that collected funds are supposed to go to. It can for example be a professor in a certain area or expensive equipment. The case can also be that you add the need when you start to discuss it with a potential donor.
Needs are always linked to a campaign and can be linked to a needs category. Needs category is a grouping of several needs, and is appropriate to use if you have arranged their needs under various themes, such as “the aging population”.
Potential major gift opportunities can be linked to a need category or a need, while gifts are linked to a need.
Fund
Fund can be used to store information about which funds that different gifts has been paid into. The concept is not entirely unproblematic for it can be difficult to distinguish between a need and a fund. If one does not feel that there is a clear distinction, you should store it as a need (because the entity is more often used in lists in the interface).
Funds are always connected to a campaign. And a fund category can be used to group several funds.
Approach
Approach is used to see how effective various activities are to collect gifts. This is especially relevant for smaller gifts. An example is sending a letter to alumni/members, and that the letter is formulated in two different ways to test the effect. In that case, you add the two procedures as: Letter A and Letter B.
Even Major Gift Opportunities can benefit from approaches: a gala dinner is arranged, where you at the same time ask for gifts.
A special effort on alumni/friends in the United States could also be an approach. The overall challenge is that Major Gift Opportunities are the result of several cultivation activities, so it may be more difficult to classify these as an approach.
A telephone campaign could be another approach. A telephone campaign could also be set up as a separate campaign, a separate need, or a separate fund.
An approach is always connected to a campaign.
An Approach Category is a way to group different approaches. Such as: postal mail, mailings or phone campaigns. Each individual mailing are then stored as a separate procedure.
Gift Type
Gift types can only be stored on gifts, not on Major Gift Opportunities. In its simplest form, one could distinguish gift types: Cash (money received or In Kind. In Kind consist of a donation of goods or services, rather than money. For example: to get an expensive machine from the manufacturer or getting an expensive painting from an alumnus.
Gifts that consist of properties or shares are more complicated. These can possibly be posted as gift types. But we would need to know more about the implications of the management that such gifts may bring. The same applies to wills and-share dividend.
Gift types can easily be confused with approaches. Try to separate them by thinking that the procedure answers the question “what activity/initiative made sure that we received the gift?” And that gift type tries to answer the question “what type does this regards?”
Gift types can also be used to see how cash gifts have been paid. For example: by credit card, bank transfer or postal transfer payment. The purpose is to verify that all the gifts has been registered properly and to follow up on the popularity of various payment methods.
Gift types can potentially be used to monitor the deduction. For example: gifts from private individuals of type Cash should be reported to the tax authorities, while the gift type In Kind, Wills and Share-dividends are excluded.
Gift types should not be confused with pledges since they are managed separately.
Major Gift Opportunities
What a Major Gift Opportunity is depends on the size of your organization and your donor base. A Major Gift Opportunity often requires some form personal relationship. Major Gift Opportunities is different from a collection and online donations (which have many small gifts usually between 50 and 5000 SEK), and giving programs (for example partner programs, often from 5000 SEK and up)
Other Terms
A successful campaign that aims to find donors and ask for major gifts are often driven by a structured process.
Seven Steps – Sjustegsprocessen
Identified – Identifierad
Research– Kvalificera
Strategize – Planera
Cultivate – Kultivera
Solicit – Fråga
Close – Avsluta & tacka
Involve – Involvera
A process or dialogue with potential donors involves several people.
Major Gift Opportunity – Potentiell Stor Gåva
Estimated gift date – Förväntat gåvodatum
Manager – Ansvarig
Asker – Frågeställare
Donor – Givare
Soft credit – Behjälplig person
When a dialogue has entered the goal, a potential major gift becomes a gift. In the step “close”, a gift sometimes becomes divided into several gifts of practical, economic or other reasons. A gift can be:
Pledge – Gåvolöfte
Paid – Betald
Pledge balance – Utestående belopp
Connected gifts – Kopplade gåvor
