Be able to run a canned report based on the total number of years given (not consecutive)
Recently I was asked to generate data for my director of all the donors who had given 10+ years (not consecutive) to our organization, total amount each donor had given during all these years, last gift date, average gift amount and the total amount given for each fiscal year. (We run on a fiscal year-not a calendar year) Our database currently has 19 years worth of data in it. I was unable to use any of the canned reports to generate this information. What I ended up having to do was create a query with a gift date greater than 12/31/1993 and a gift amount greater than 0. I also filtered by gift types. After I ran that query, I went to export, attached the query I had created and then filtered on these fields: average gift amount, Total gift amount for all years, last gift date, and total gift amount for each fiscal year. I had to set the dates within the filter for each fiscal year. I also pulled addressee. It took the export quite a while to run 19 years worth of data. I exported the information to excel. From there, I renamed the fields so the director would know which fields represented which years, etc. Then came trying to hide or delete the "0" fields in the spreadsheet but count the years correctly of those who had given 10+ years. I found that challenging in and of itself. I was unaware that when the data exported from RE, it came over as text. I reformatted my fields to numerical but still had problems getting the "count function" to work correctly. I finally got this function to work: =COUNTIF(E20:W20,">$0.00"). When I called BB, I was told that the count function issue was outside the support of RE. I had also previously called them about how to obtain this information but was told there was no easy way to extract the data.
I spent hours trying to manipulate the data only to learn that my director is going to want this information on a recurring basis and also she wants to be able to do a merge letter to those who have given "x" number of years based on this data.
During this process, I learned that there was no easy way to pull this information from Raiser's Edge. I am not an experienced Crystal Report user so that option was out for me. And, our organization is a small, non-profit who cannot afford the high fees it would cost to have a custom report written for us.
This problem with having to pull the information this way is that each time I need to generate the information and export it, I have to go through the whole process of reformatting the excel document and reinserting the formula to count the data. The data gets stale fast and there is no easy way to update it. Also, I would need to insert the address fields so that a merge letter could be done to those donors the director wishes to mail a letter to.
My supervisor said to me, "surely this is not an unreasonable request." I thought about what she said and I agree. We cannot be the only organization that would like to know out of "x" number of total years of data, how many donors have given "x" number of years (not consecutively). This information is valuable to us because it shows donor loyalty over the years and we want to recognize these donors in some way. With the economy the way it is, we are trying to maximize our connections with our donors.
Please vote for this sugestion. This type of canned report could benefit alot of organizations who have had good donors over a number of years who need to be thanked and recognized for their contributions. It is a way to reconnect on a higher level with our donors.
-
Dianne Smith
- Jun 26 2012
- Reviewed: Voting Open
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- +415
Related ideas
So many organizations have a fiscal year that isn't based on the calendar year. For those of us that this applies to this very simple canned report, that our bosses ask for every year can't be utilized. And instead we have to create our very own complicated reports.
Would be definitely very helpful and improve donor recognition process.
Thanks, Heather! Good catch. I've merged the ideas.
is ideaRE7-I-4779 the same and should be merged?
Idea RE7 -I-4779 and this one
RE7 -I-20 appear to be the
same, at least to me. Please review and merge if appropriate.
Thanks!
Heather
Le mer. 25 ao��t 2021 �� 13:24, Blackbaud: Ideas for Raiser's Edge <
03aefb770646edf3863bdb74-blackbaud@iad-prod1.mailer.aha.io> a ��crit :
>
Changing the status of this idea to Voting Open because it's been reviewed. While not currently planned, this will remain open for voting and future consideration as a change.
Yes, I have been asked for this several times.
I would like not only a report but the ability to query on 'consistent' donors and export easily. Was also very disappointed and frustrated when unable to generate a list of donor who'd given 'X of Y' years but maybe not consecutive years.
Still working on getting a quote from BB about creating a custom report to be able to do this.
I agree with this very much. Just because someone didn't give last year, or for one year a few years ago, doesn't mean they aren't a loyal donor. Without being able to pull this information, we are missing donors who would qualify as loyal and should be recognized as such...
Our organization is also seeking an efficient way to find out how many of our members have given for X years or X of Y years and to easily retrieve donor lists according to the number of years a donor has given. This is basic information, essential to fundraising and something BlackBaud should address right away. Case in point: we have a donor who wants to celebrate his 25 years of giving to our organization by matching any additional gifts from donors who have given to our organization for ten or more years, consecutive or not. We should be able to readily secure an accurate list of eligible donors through Raiser’s Edge instead of having to do a lot of manual manipulations to get the needed information.
Definitely a wonderful idea. We send a special appeal letter to our "loyal" donors each year. "Loyal" translates to anyone who gave a gift in at least 10 of the previous 15 years. When we started this, a BB rep (or maybe it was a Knowledgebase solution) guided me through the complicated process of setting up the query Dianne mentioned and then reworking the Excel file with the "count" function, sorting on total years, eliminating those who fall below my parameters, etc. So the original query is useless for globally adding anything (like the appeal) to these loyal constituents' records. And you better remember to ask for all your fields in the query, like address, last gift amount, etc. because you don't have a query to export. And the next year you have to eliminate the original year and add the next one and start all over.
Hey ladies and gentlemen,
An update, Blackbaud quoted us $4,500 to create a custom report through Crystal. We talked about it and they removed some of the fields and it was still going to cost between $3000-$4000 dollars. We said "No Thank You." We had to manipulate data as described above and I agree with Pat that next year we will have to do it all over again and subtract out those we included this year. Blackbaud does need to create a custom report at no charge for customers to be able to produce this type of information. This is NOT unreasonable information to ask for. We recently sent out our first "Decades of Caring" mailing and this will be an annual event for us. I am not pleased that we have to export all this information out of Raiser's Edge and manually manipulate it to get the number of years given (not necessarily consecutive). We pay a nice price for maintenance and basically got little assistance with this project. I talked with our account manager and he was sympathetic and directed me to this site but without shelling out the money for a Crystal report, we were on our own to come up with a report. It tooks hours to figure out a process and still one that is not easy at that!
One of our Gift clubs is affectionately called the 25-25 club. The donor has given 25,000+ dollars over 25+ non-consecutive years. The "total years" of giving (non-consecutive) is reported on the gift summary form for the individual donor. We need to be able to query against it, export it in data sets, and include it in dashboards & reports.
Oh my goodness! This is EXACTLY the problem I am facing! Only my boss is requesting lists of various levels of giving....5 yrs, 10 yrs, 15 yrs, 20 yrs, 25 yrs and 30 yrs (but not necessarily consecutive giving). I'm glad to know I'm not just overlooking how to run this data! Yes, Blackbaud, please create this report for us!! :)
Agreed! Would be nice to be able to view consecutive months as well for identifying potential monthly donors.
I agree on two counts: 1. a report which provides multiyear, noncnsecutive giving data would be extremely helpful! 2. The report should be able to be exported to an Excel spreadsheet so that the date could be sorted, subtotaled, prioritized, etc.
I just set up a work-around in Exports:
1. Create a Query of donors with a gift date between two time frames (e.g. 2000-2013). If you specificaly want multiple year donors, query on Summary Information/Summary Gift you have several options:
a. Number of Gifts "greater than..."
b. consecutive years giving greater than (use a number of 2-5 to catch multiyear donors)
Save.*
2. Create an Export, using the query you just created to gather your donors. In the export fields you can list all the constituent data you need (name, contact info, constituency, etc). Then create a new column for each year, setting the dates according to your fiscal year, as follows:
Summary Information
Gifts
Total number of gifts: Criteria: Gift date between 1/1/2000 - 12/31/2000 (or FY dates)
KEY to creating consecutive year totals by year = between each year, click on the bold report name at the top of the Output box, then click on Summary information and add info for the next year.
By doing this you can export as many years as you have information.
Be sure to export using the CSV format to keep your numbers in number form. then you can open that CSV spreadsheet and "save as" Excel to continue working.
Now you have a very user-friendly spreadsheet that can be totaled, averaged, etc. by both column and row.
*In lieu of a query, you might also be able to run a sybunt report. Check the create an output query box, then use the output query generated. It would give you all donors from all years, so it is not ideal, but another way to work around nevertheless.
Samona - I do not recommend using total number of gifts. This could include gifts that have been adjusted down to $0 (due to a bounced check or gift entry error) unless you remember to use a start amount of $0.01 or exclude zero amount gifts - causing people to look like donors who may not be. I recommend using total gift amount since $0 gifts would never impact a total amount.
I am in complete agreement as to why Blackbaud cannot set a canned report to show amount of years a donor has given. We recognize loyal donors each year at an annual banquet and the process I go through is crazy when we have a database as sophisticated as the Raiser's Edge. Needless to say, all organizations need to know who their loyal donors are over the years. When a donor happens to miss a year of giving they are then thrown out of the consecutive years report.
Has any work been done by Blackbaud to address the need for this type of report? Still needing an easier work around.