[EduardoG]

We have come across a reporting issue where gifts from our events from Fiscal Year 2007 are showing up in our FY2008 reports. This is all due to our campaigns being catch-alls for the type of campaign rather than the actual campaign/event.
We have decided we need to change this, and rather than making new appeals and funds for each year, we've concluded that creating a new campaign each year seems to be the easiest method, especially as there will always be the same funds and appeals in each year's campaign.

Do people have any comments of suggestions about our decision? Our we overlooking something? How have you handled repeating campaigns/events whose donations may spill over into the next fiscal year?

[Melissa Siobhan]

Why aren't you using a date range for your FY08 reports? Any money that comes in that date range is an FY08 even if the event is in the next fiscal year.

[Michael Sherman]

Our donor recognition is based on calendar year but we are on a fiscal year. I track campaigns based on the calendar year and funds based on the fiscal year. A new set of campaign codes are created every calendar year and a new set of funds are created for every fiscal year.

Doing reports for programs or events cannot be based on gift date since we will receive gifts on the same day for the Music Festival that just ended and for next year's Music Festival. Even though the gifts are counted for the same fiscal year some reports need to be based on the event.

This system does create a lot of codes but they can be marked inactive. I'm not a fan of a lot of codes but I haven't been able to figure out a way around it here.

[EduardoG]

We're in Michael's shoes as well, where a gift on, let's say, 1/1/08 could be for last year's event OR this year's. We want to switch it up so we have campaigns based on each year's event, but must now find the time.

[Melissa Siobhan]

I do not use very specific campaigns. I would prefer to have one campagin called events and run reports based on gift date. To get numbers for a specific event I would use appeal and leave the date range open. How are you using appeal and would this be an option for you?

[EduardoG]

We have the Events set up like this:

Campaign designates the event, so for example 2008 Race.
Fund designates whether it's a corporate gift or individual, and further if the corporate or individual gift is restricted or unrestricted, if the gift is a sponsorship, and so on. The restricted vs. unrestricted funds are universal for all campaigns.
At the appeal level, we have the type of sponsorships, and we have our contract exports set up to run on the different type of sponsorship appeals.

As we have the GL distribution codes on the funds and the exports running off the appeals, I think campaigns is the place to do the tweaking.

[RobertWild]

Here, we tier our systems.

Campaigns = umbrella code
Funds = Specific funds that attract donations
Appeal = the year of fundraising (usually calendar for us)

Hence we can delineate annual performance on funds depending on what the appeal year is. Also allows for the tracking of expenses against each year's appeal for funds.

[nisaac]

It is confusing, I agree. We've made a decision to base everything on the fiscal year. We may call our event by the calendar year name; however, we report by fiscal year.

Our campaigns are our umbrella also: General, 3rd party events; chapter events, etc. Our funds are driven by our finance side. We integrate with FE. We associate an appeal with every gift. We have separate appeals for every event, mailing appeal, and some general appeals such as unsolicited, tribute, etc.

All of our campaigns and appeals are created yearly. It makes for easier reporting for us.