[Harriet]

As part of our building campaign, there is an initiative planned where donors will be able to "buy" all or part of a specific room in the new building. I am trying to decide the best way to keep track of this information so that 5 years down the road when the room signs are being made we are able to get the right donor names engraved.

Is anyone out there doing this type of fund raising. If so, any tips would be appreciated.

[Matthew]

1. set up a special campaign, fund, or appeal to group all of these gifts
2. create a gift attribute called "Room Sponsor"...the drop down will be the names of rooms available to be sponsored.
3. set up a special add/sal for Donor Plaque
4. add a gift note type of Donor Plaque inscription

[Harriet]

Hi Mat

The system you suggest is how I started, but my concern is that we have over 200 places that can be named (includes all the animal kennel rooms). That makes for one heck of an attribute drop down list and I have to be certain that each room gets assigned only once.

I have been trying to "think outside of the box" on this, so one thing I've played with is setting up an event so that I could use the seating plan to assign donors to rooms. The event would hold the prices for each room type and would allow us to see the status of room sales at a glance. It is a simple matter to link a gift to an event and immediately assign that "registrant" to prelisted room, especially when there will be only about 200 to process over an extended period of time.

[SandyWilder]

Harriett,
I LOVE your event idea! It's going to give you GREAT reporting opportunities down the road and will force the uniqueness you need. You so smart

[sbeshuk]

Hi Harriett,

That sounds like a good approach. Very creative!

I have also seen where organizations that have the need to track a lot of "naming opportunities" track each room as an organizational constituent record. You would add a constituent code that identifies it as a room (or whatever it is) and link the "room record" to the buyer and soft credit the room with the actual gift that purchased it. If there is additional info you want to track about the room, such as where it is, how much it costs (some rooms are more prestigious than others, right?) if a purchase is pending (i.e., it's been "checked out"), how the plate should read, if there are actions related to the room, etc.

Best,


Steve Beshuk, PMP
Director, Management Consulting | JCA
www.jcainc.com


Helping Non-Profits Work Smarter

[Matthew]

OOOOH! I didn't realize you it was that big of an undertaking. Yes, I would use event seating as well.

[sstaab]

Harriet,

Thanks for the creative idea for tracking naming opportunities. Your suggestion came at a very opportune time for me as we were just discussing the best way to track this information. I'm going to give your suggestion a try. You definitely went out of the box with this solution! Thanks again.

[Elaine Tucker]

At first reaction I really really like the idea as well.

We currently have a single fund for each of our naming opportunities, as we need to report specifically on how each is doing and have proposals connected to the ask for the naming gift. These funds flow into 1 project in FE.

Could you connect all that with the seating chart?

[Harriet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elaine Tucker

At first reaction I really really like the idea as well.

We currently have a single fund for each of our naming opportunities, as we need to report specifically on how each is doing and have proposals connected to the ask for the naming gift. These funds flow into 1 project in FE.

Could you connect all that with the seating chart?

Hi Elaine,

Someone may prove me wrong, but I am not aware of anything on an Event record that calls for a fund to be specified for the Event. The fund choice would happen with the gift entry. In your case, since you want to keep your naming opportunities tracking separately, you could take advantage of groups - allowing multiple subevents under one umbrella event.