The User's Edge : mail

Mail Musings: Address Processing

Katy McGinnis — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:19:00 GMT

Most people can be reached more than one address - that's why you can add multiple addresses to constituent records. To keep from oversaturation, address processing ensures that each constituent only gets each mailing once, and only to the address you specify

In most mailings (Quick Letters, Labels, Donor Acknowledgement Letters, etc.), there are two address tabs: Ind Address and Org Address. These tabs are used to determine which address will be used for each type of constituent record.

An individual may have a summer or winter house in addition to their preferred mailing address. Address Processing allows users to mail to a Seasonal address as of the date of the mailing to avoid sending mail to the beach bums during the winter. For individuals who have their own organization relationships, you can specify on the Ind Address tab to mail to the Business address for that constituent so that they're contacted at work - where they might be prompted to send a donation.

If there's no address found based on the settings, you can either remove the record from the mailing, print the constituent's name with no address, or to print a specific address, such as the Preferred Address.

When working with organization records, address processing enables users to mail to an actual person at an organization. This is useful for larger organizations where mailings with just the company name may be regarded as junk mail. If you have contacts for the organization and wish to mail to them, you can select specific contact types, such as all Primary Contacts.

When an organization has several contact types, a Contact record can be assigned an Attribute. For example, you could use a Contact Attribute Category of Special Mailing Info with a Description of Newsletter. This way, only those Contacts with the Newsletter attribute would be considered in your Newsletter mailing.

The same thing goes for the Address record. If you choose to only mail to a specific address a constituent or contact has, you can use Address Attributes step of the processing to designate the addresses to consider.

If you don't have contacts, you can just to mail to the organization. If some organizations have contacts and others don't, the mailing can be set up to mail to a specific address of that organization.

These options can save a lot of time and loads of money for your organization. Next time you have a mailing, ditch the query, set up the mailing, and never look back!

For a more in depth look on address processing, as well as other specific examples, refer to Knowledgebase solution BB518.

Mail Musings: A Brief History of eReceipts

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:26:00 GMT

The earliest receipt was developed by our Neanderthal ancestors, who used large, heavy rocks to acknowledge the exchange of goods or services. This led to a great deal of confusion, as these same rocks were also used as currency, and all available goods and services were in some way rock-related. Over the millennia, the receipt evolved, rocks gave way to clay tablets, papyrus, parchment, and ultimately the modern paper receipt. In recent years, evolution has leaped forward, providing humankind with a new tool: the electronic receipt. In The Raiser's Edge, eReceipts let you create and send receipts without creating anything on paper.

When you work with eReceipts, you must specify an SMTP mail server and port number for your local email server that will be used to send electronic receipts. This information is added to The Raiser's Edge under Configuration, Business Rules, Mail options. If you are hosted by Blackbaud, you will need to request that your organization be configured to use SMTP relay before you run eReceipts for the first time. Create a case or email OnDemandSupport@blackbaud.com and an analyst will assist you.

Once this is configured, enter the following in the SMTP field: re-relay.hurricane.blackbaudhost.com. Enter 25 in the Port Number field.

If you have created custom receipts in the Mail module before, using eReceipts will be a snap. The process is the same way in that you open a new Receipt parameter file in Mail and select Create custom data file as the Receipt Type on the General tab. On the Fields to Include tab, select the fields to include on the receipt.

On the eReceipts tab, mark the Send as eReceipts checkbox and select Write Message. Indicate who the email is from, specify the subject, and then compose an email to accompany the receipt, using the Insert Field button to add the merge fields you selected on the Fields to Include tab. Once you are done, click OK to save the email and then specify the Email Types to Use. Select Send to Word Merge Wizard, save the new receipt parameters, and click Next to begin the Mail Merge Wizard. You can select to mark gifts as receipted, receipted and acknowledged, or Do Not Update as appropriate.

If you are creating one type of receipt for all donors, select to perform a simple mail merge using only one document. If you are creating customized receipts based on fields such as gift type, campaign, fund, appeal, or letter code, select to perform a conditional mail merge using multiple documents. Add the receipt template(s) to the wizard, and click Finish to merge them and send receipts electronically. The receipts will preview for record-keeping purposes. When the preview appears, the email message will have already been sent with the receipt as a PDF attachment.

You can read more about eReceipts in Knowledgebase solution BB186795.

Query Qualities/Mail Musings/Report Roundup Crossover: Bring On The New Year

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:05:00 GMT

The end of the year is a time of reflection and recapitulation. The Raiser's Edge can help you recognize the past year's top donors, analyze giving, and plan for a better year ahead.

Query is a fast and easy way to group donors you would like to recognize. To find donors whose cumulative giving exceeded a specific amount in the last year, create a new constituent query and filter on Summary Information, Summary for Gift, Total Amount greater than or equal to [specific amount]. In the total amount criteria window, select the Filter tab to add the date range criteria (e.g., Gift Date between 1/1/2008 - 12/31/2008).

Summary Information fields include default gift types, including Cash, Pledge, MG Pledge, Stock/Property, Stock/Property (Sold), Gift-in-Kind, Recurring Gift Pay-Cash, and Other, minus Write Off and MG Write Off (BB66390). To consider your own gift types (e.g., pledge payments instead of pledges), filter by Gift Type on the Filter tab.

Use Mail to thank donors for their gifts and appeal for new ones. In a recent post, Kevin Brunson discusses how to tailor your Donor Acknowledgement Letters to create specialized letters for each constituent. Only gifts marked as Not Acknowledged are included in Donor Acknowledgement Letters, and you can update the acknowledgement status during the merge process to make sure each gift is acknowledged only once.

Use Appeal Cards to remind constituents of ongoing appeals or to notify them of new ones. You can include information about a constituent's past gifts and include a suggested gift amount.

There are several options in Reports for evaluating previous fundraising strategies and planning new approaches. The Top Donors Report is used to identify top donors by percent or count, while the Donor Category Report divides donors into giving levels defined in Configuration, Tables. For more on the Donor Category report, check out another one of Kevin's posts.

Other useful reports include the Consecutive Years Report, which identifies donors who have given repeatedly over several years and the Comparative Report, which compares constituents' giving trends across two report periods. The Comparative Report is the most direct way to determine whose giving increased or decreased.

The Annual Statement Report itemizes each constituent's gifts on a separate page and provides donors with everything they need for tax purposes in one form. You can include all records, selected records, or one record, and filter by date range, campaigns, funds, appeals, constituent codes, attributes, and gift types. As shown below, the report includes Constituent Name (including an Address), Date, Gift Type, Amount, Receipt Number, and Receipt Amount as default columns.

As you develop an approach that suits your organization, document it in a policies and procedures manual. If you think that your manual would be useful to other organizations, add it as an attachment to a post in our shared client documents forum.

For more information on recognizing last year's donors, review Knowledgebase solution BB183476.

Mail Musings: Streamline your Acknowledgement Letters

Kevin Brunson — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:30:00 GMT

Do all of your donors receive the same level of treatment? Does the donor who gives toward the Building Fund get the same letter as the donor who gives toward the Disaster Relief Fund? I’m sure you would say no. So why should all of your donors get the same boilerplate acknowledgement letter? The Raiser’s Edge has the ability to let you select a field and make multiple versions of a letter, based on that field. This gives you the ability to get really creative in your acknowledgement letter.

The end result is each donor will receive a specialized acknowledgement letter based on the letter code, or other field, that is used as the condition. The donor who gave toward the Building Fund receives an acknowledgement focused on the efforts of the new building. The donor who gave toward the Disaster Relief Fund receives an acknowledgement focused on regional and worldwide relief efforts.

To get started, decide which field is best to use for your condition. For this scenario, I am going to use the Gift Letter field. When donations are entered into Raiser’s Edge through Records or Batch, make sure each gift is coded with the correct Gift Letter code.

In Mail, open Donor Acknowledgement Letters. Set up your criteria including filters and date ranges. Click the Send to Word merge wizard button at the top of the window. If prompted, name and save the Mail parameter and click OK. Click Next to export the data file. Select to Perform a conditional mail merge, and click Next. The Choose your conditional field screen appears, select the field to use (in this example ‘Letter’), and click Next.

The Create merge documents screen appears, click New Document to add your first conditional acknowledgement letter. On the Conditional Merge Document screen select the condition (for example, equal to), select the value from the drop-down, and enter a description for the letter. Click Edit merge document to open the new letter in Word.

Word opens to a blank merge document in which you can type the text of your letter. When finished, click Save and Return to RE7. Click OK to return to the Create merge documents screen.

While on the Create merge documents screen, you can repeat this process to create as many conditional letters as you need.

When all of your letters are created, click Finish to merge them. If you are prompted, enter the name and location of the conditional merge documents, and click OK.

Word opens, and the finished merge letters print to screen, so you can now review and print the letters from Word. The end result is each donor receives a letter specific to the Letter code on his gift.

For more information on running conditional donor acknowledgement letters, check out Knowledgebase solution BB97661.

Does your organization use conditional merges to issue acknowledgement letters or other mailings? Do you have any suggestions for your fellow Raiser's Edge users? If you do, please leave a comment on this post.

Mail Musings: One Way to Consolidate

Kevin Brunson — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:54:00 GMT

A little over a week ago I was at the Charleston Conference speaking with clients in the Customer Support booth. (A little shout out, if you were at the conference and stopped by, it was nice meeting you and getting to know a little more about your organization). One thing I noticed while speaking to clients is there were a lot of questions that focused on one major theme: the Mail module. There were questions on Labels, Envelopes, Donor Acknowledgement Letters, Receipts, etc. So in light of the number of questions about Mail, I decided that my next few posts will focus on mailings.

To get started, I wanted to talk a little about Consolidated Receipts. As we are close to the end of the year, I thought this was a good topic to start with. Consolidated receipts are exactly what they sound like; they combine all of the donor's individual gifts into one receipt. So if a donor gave 5 gifts over the year, instead of getting 5 individual receipts, the donor would receive one receipt with the total gift amount. For donors who don't want to receive individual receipts for each donation (for example, monthly payroll deduction or recurring direct debit or credit card donors), consolidated receipts are a great solution.

The first step is to set up the donor’s record to receive consolidated receipts. To do this, open the donor’s record and go to the Bio2 tab. In the Receipt type field select Consolidated receipts, and save the record. To create and send your donors consolidated receipts, use the following steps:

Create a query of constituents with a consolidated receipt type.
Add the desired output fields and check the query results. Save and close the query.
In Mail, create a new Receipt parameter set.
On the General tab, select the desired receipt type. If using pre-printed receipts, select Pre-printed receipts. If creating a custom receipt in Microsoft Word, select Create custom data file.
Select to Include records from the query created in step 1.
On the Fields to include tab, select the fields that you want included on your receipts.
Complete the remaining tabs to create the receipts.

The end result is each donor will receive a consolidated receipt that summarizes his giving for the date range for which you ran the mailing. For more information on running consolidated receipts, check out Knowledgebase solution BB29002.

Does your organization use consolidated receipts? If so, do you have any suggestions for your fellow Raiser's Edge users? If you do, please leave a comment on this post.

Mail Musings: Address Processing, Part II: Organizations and Contacts

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:22:00 GMT

In an earlier blog post, I discussed how Address Processing works for Individual records. In this follow-up segment, we will look at how Organization and Contact records are processed in Mail.

For Organization Address Processing, if you have marked the option Mail Only to the Organization in Step 1, you will have the same steps as you followed on the Individual Address tab, minus the Seasonal Address. If you choose to mail to contacts, the process is defined by three steps, which consider contacts, contact address attributes, and specific address types.

When you are mailing to contacts, click the Contact Information button to select the contact types to include. The Contacts to Receive Mail screen appears.
You can include all or selected contact types. To select specific contact types, mark the Include Selected Contact Types Only checkbox and highlight the contact type or types to include. Click the right arrow to add it to your list. If you are including multiple contact types, use the up and down arrows to organize them by importance. If an organization has multiple contacts, the first valid contact is included, based on this hierarchy. If you want to send a mailing to each of the contacts at an organization, mark the Print one for each contact found checkbox. If a contact is also a constituent who is included in the mailing, you can select one of three mailing options: Mail to the individual address only, Mail to the contact address only, or Mail to both addresses separately. Additionally, you can filter on Contact Attributes and Contact Address Attributes to further refine your contact selection.
For Contacts, you will also have the option to indicate which rule to follow if there is no valid address in Steps 1 and 2. The options are to Print the Organization name with no address, Remove record from run, or Print specific organization address. The same rules apply as on the Individual Address tab.

All of the information in both of these posts, including additional screenshots and examples, is in Knowledgebase; it's BB518.

Mail Musings: Address Processing, Part I: Individuals

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:29:00 GMT

In a better world, every Individual, Organization, and Contact record would have one all-purpose address. Because the world isn't that perfect, The Raiser's Edge accomodates multiple addresses on each record. When it's time to send a mailing, Address Processing shuffles through those addresses to your specifications.

Although Address Processing only takes moments, it is a production worthy of David Lean. There are at most four steps involved, but a cornucopia of distinctions is being made.

On the Individual Address tab, there are four steps involved in Address Processing. The first three steps use seasonal addresses, address attributes, and specific address types. The final step gives you the option of selecting an address to use if a valid address is not found.

Address Processing considers each of these steps in order. If the Consider addresses with seasonal dates as of checkbox is marked, seasonal addresses will be considered first. If the date you select on this step falls within the range of the dates on a seasonal address record, it will be selected. If there are multiple seasonal addresses with a valid date on a record, the first address listed is used. If there is no valid seasonal address, the program moves on to Step 2.
In the second step, the Preferred Address defaults as the Address to use. If you wish to consider another address type or types, highlight the address type in the Addresses list and click the right arrow to move it to the Addresses to use list. If you want to consider more than one, list them in order of preference. Use the arrow buttons to move addresses up or down in the list.
If you use address attributes and wish to include them in the process, select the address attributes to consider in Step 3. For address attributes, both the category and description must be present on the address record for it to be considered. Before an address is considered, it must also be included in the Addresses to use list in Step 2. If you choose to use address attributes,, Address Processing checks the address record for the attribute’s presence before Step 1 and then proceeds with Steps 1 and 2.
In the event that a constituent does not have a valid address that meets the criteria in Steps 1-3, you have the option of choosing to Print with no address, Remove record from run, or Print Specific Address. Selecting print specific address opens up the option to choose from a list of address types to use. Even if the address is invalid, if that type is present on the record, it will print in the mailing.

That does it for the Individual Address tab. Keep your eyes peeled for Part 2 of this epic, where we tackle the Organization Address tab.

Mail Musings: Making the Right Choice (Addressee/Salutationwise)

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:44:00 GMT

In her blog post, A Donor By Any Other Name, Sarah McBride discussed the importance of using the proper Addressee/Salutation for your constituents. The element of this that most often trips up users is selecting the Addressee or Salutation to use in Mail or in a Report.

In Mail, you select the Addressee or Salutation to use on the Fields to Include tab. Select the Addressee or Salutation field and the Options button becomes available. When you click on this button, the Customization Options for Addressee screen appears, as shown below:

There are three options on this screen:

From individual: Select this option to use an addressee/salutation type present on the constituent's Addressees/Salutations tab (e.g., Primary Addressee or Primary Salutation). This prints the addressee/salutation exactly as it is listed on the constituent's record, including addressee/salutations marked as editable.
From Configuration: Select this option to base the name format on a formula from Configuration's Addressees/Salutations screen, regardless of what's entered on the constituent's Addressees/Salutations tab.
Use individual name: Select this option to pull the constituent's first name, middle initial, and last name (e.g., Robert C. Hernandez).

In the screenshot above, there are three record types listed under the Constituent heading: Individual, Organization, and Contact. The Addressee or Salutation for each record type must be selected separately for each record type. Selecting Primary Addressee From Individual when Constituent is selected in the panel on the left will not select this option for a Contact record: you will need to highlight Contact to make this selection.

This option also appears on the Format tab of some reports. The available record types vary from report to report, and can include the three in the example above as well as Solicitor and Tribute name formats.

The next time you preview a mailing and the constituent name comes out differently than you expect, check the Fields to Include tab and make sure that you have selected the Addressee/Salutation type you need. Also, check out Knowledgebase solution BB386294 for more information.

Mail Musings: Be Kind, Remind

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:09:00 GMT

Pledges and Recurring gifts are a way to build lasting relationships with your constituents, and it's important that there's always something there to remind them to follow through on their commitment. In the Mail module, select Reminders to create 3- or 5-column reminders, which can be used with Blackbaud's reminder forms. Or, if you travel to the beat of a different drum, you can create your own custom reminders.

You can run the reminders Per pledge or Per installment. If you select Per pledge, the original pledge date must fall within the General tab's date range. If you select Per installment, only installments with due dates within the date range are included. For pledges that meet the criteria, the Run date determines which pledge installments to include and the balance due for those installments. The Run date should be the same as the end date.

3-Column Reminders include the Total Pledge, Amount Paid, and Balance. The Total Pledge and Amount Paid columns are the same regardless of whether you print reminders per pledge or per installment. The Balance column is influenced by your selection.

The Total Pledge field, as the name indicates, includes the full amount of the pledge. Amount Paid is the total amount the constituent has paid toward the pledge plus the amount of any write-offs falling within the specified date range. If a constituent pledged $100, made a $25 payment, and wrote off $25, the Amount Paid column would be $50.

The Balance field, as I mentioned above, will calculate depending on whether you choose to run reminders per pledge or per installment. With per pledge selected, the Balance shows the entire pledge balance as of the date you run the reminders. Whenyou print reminders per installment, the Balance column reflects the balance of any installments due within the date range on the General tab. Write-off totals are subtracted from the balance.

You can find this information in Knowledgebase as well; it's BB66812.

5-Column Reminders include Total Pledge, Total Billed, Total Paid, Planned Paid, and Total Due. Total Pledge is the same as above, and Total Paid is the equivalent of the Amount Paid column in 3-column reminders. As was the case with the 3-Column Reminders, these values are the same regardless of whether you print reminders per pledge or per installment, while the others calculate differently depending upon the option you select.

For reminders per pledge, Total Billed shows the total amount of all installments due before the General tab's run date. If you run reminders per installment, it's the total amount, paid and unpaid, of all installments due before the installment for which the current reminder is printing. Total Billed does not include write-offs.

If you run reminders per pledge, Planned Paid is the total amount of all installments with a due date before the General tab's run date. If you run reminders per installment, Planned Paid is the total amount of the installment and does not reflect any payments. If the installment amount is $50 and $25 has been paid, the Planned Paid column displays $50. Write-offs are subtracted from the Planned Paid amount.

If you run reminders per pledge, Total Due is the total amount due for the pledge. If you run reminders per installment, Total Due reflects the total amount due for the installment. This amount subtracts all payments and write-offs toward the installment. Total Due equals Total Paid minus Planned Paid.

You can also find this information in Knowledgebase, it's BB520974 .

Custom reminders allow you to create your reminder using a Blackbaud Simple or Conditional Word Merge. All of the fields discussed above are available, and each is calculated the same way. Two additional fields are available only when you export custom reminders:

Total Amount Pledged — This field reflects the amount of the pledge minus payments and write-offs. It is not affected by the run date.
Total Running Balance — This field reflects the amount due for the pledge as of the run date. If you select per pledge, the Total Running Balance amount is for the entire pledge. If you select per installment, the amount is for the installment.

With all these tools at your disposal, you can certainly keep your donors on task with their payments. For the ultimate Knowledgebase overview of reminders, check out solution BB69806.

Mail Musings/Report Roundup Crossover: Just My Type

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:36:00 GMT

The most common gift type entered into The Raiser's Edge is a cash gift. For reporting purposes, a cash gift is very straightforward - $100 in cash on a record will appear as $100 on a report or in a mailing. Stock/Property and Pledge gifts are more mercurial - the dollar value in the amount field on a gift isn't necessarily what you want or need on a report or in a mailing. The Gift Types tab in most Reports and Mail functions contain the checkboxes shown below:

These checkboxes enable you to filter what gifts are included and how their amounts and dates are calculated.

The first checkbox, Exclude zero amount gifts is fairly self-explanatory: gifts with a value of $0 will not beincluded.

There are three checkboxes that pertain to Stock/Property gifts. When Use sale date for sold stock/property is marked, the report or mailing will only consider gifts whose sale dates are within the date range on the General tab. If the Gift Date is within this range, and the Sale Date is not, the gift will not be included. Use sale amount for sold stock/property will use the sale amount, rather than the gift amount, and Subtract broker fee from sold stock/property will alter the amount in the report or mailing to include the broker fee.

The last two options pertain to Pledge gifts. Marking Use gift balance instead of gift amount will include a pledge's outstanding balance, not its original amount. If you include pledges and pledge payments in the same function, marking this option will prevent the pledge payments from being added to the full pledge amount. Marking Calculate gift balance based on date range, campaign, fund, and appeal will calculate pledge balances based on the General tab's date range and the campaign, fund, and appeal filters you specify on the Filters tab. If you do not mark the checkbox, pledge balances are calculated as of the current date, not the General tab's date range, and they reflect pledge activity in all campaigns, funds, and appeals, not just those you specify on the Filters tab.

This information is also in Knowledgebase; it's BB10957.

In the Brain Buster from this month's edition of The User's Edge, the builder had forgotten the house numbers. The cost is $1 per digit, so Robert spent $3.00.

Mail Musings: Mass (Email) Hysteria!

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:41:00 GMT

Email has made it easier to reach out and touch someone. In The Raiser's Edge, emails are stored as phone numbers on constituent records. You can mark a phone type as an email address and email constituents from their individual records. You can also use these email addresses to send emails to groups of records.

Inside The Raiser's Edge, use Globally Add Records in Administration to send mass emails. This requires a MAPI- (Messaging Application Program Interface) compliant email program, such as Microsoft Outlook. If you're using something other than Outlook, review the system recommendations for information about supported email clients. Outside The Raiser's Edge, use Microsoft Outlook with an exported data file or Microsoft Word using a mail merge.

You can also send emails to groups using NetMail. Because NetSolutions is an optional module, I'll just cover the options that require only The Raiser's Edge and MS Office.

To use Globally Add Records in Administration to send mass emails, go to Administration, Globally Add Records.

The screenshot above shows the Global Add screen. Your first step will be to select Email from the Add drop-down. You can then choose to include specific records from a query or to email every record with an email address in your database.

The option to send an email to each constituent or to group does not affect who receives the message. The email will still be sent to every record who is included in the global add. When selecting the to each constituent option, an individual email message is created for each recipient. Each constituent will see only his own name in the To line. The to group option sends one email message to the whole group and allows each recipient to see the names of all the other recipients in the To line.

In the Preference field, select the email type you wish to send the message to. The email phone type is not written in stone, and constituents can have multiple email types, such as Email, E-Mail, Work Email or anything else you can dream up.

Click Enter Email Now to compose your message. You may receive the prompt "Are you sure you want to add this email to all of the selected records?" This prompt is to warn you that you will send an email to each record selected under the Include button. Click Yes to proceed.

At this point, enter the subject and your message, and click Send Now to send your message. You may receive the following message from Outlook: "A program is trying to access email addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this? If this is unexpected, it may be a virus and you should choose No." Either click Yes until all messages are sent, or use the ClickYes utility to bypass the prompt.

An advantage of sending emails to constituents using an export file is the ability to use multiple email addresses from each constituent, including those not stored on the Bio 1 tab. After exporting the constituents' email addresses in Excel, open the export file and select a column containing email addresses. Copy the email addresses into the To or BCC line of the email message. As with the to each constituent/to group options in Global Add, the To line allows each recipient to view other recipients' email addresses and the BCC (blind carbon copy) line prevents recipients from viewing other recipients' email addresses. In Outlook, press Alt + K to automatically format the email addresses and separate them with a semicolon.

To use a mail merge in Microsoft Word, you would also start by exporting the constituents' email addresses and any additional fields such as addressee or salutation. Select Microsoft Word Merge File format and mark the Include Header Record checkbox.

In your Word document, select Tools, Mail Merge from the menu bar. Follow the steps for creating a form letter mail merge document. You do not need to include the email address itself as a merge field. When you have composed the letter, select Tools, Mail Merge from the menu bar, and click Merge. Select Electronic Mail from the Merge To selection list, and click Setup to identify the field in your data file that contains the email addresses. In the Data field with Mail/Fax address selection list, select the email address field name from the data file. Enter the subject of your email in the Mail message subject line.

These steps can also be found in Knowledgebase solution BB34424.

Mail Musings: No Records? No Problem!

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:50:00 GMT

Perhaps the five most dreaded words in The Raiser's Edge are the following: No records meet specified criteria.

What can make this message especially frustrating is the fact that it can be traced to so many different sources. For starters, if you are basing a report or mailing on a query, and there is a conflict between your query criteria and your report/mail parameters, this may cause you to receive this error message.

If you were to create a gift query on May 1st of all your gifts from April and then include this query in a new Gift Detail and Summary report without changing any of the other parameters, you would receive this message when previewing the report. The reason for this is that the Gift Detail and Summary report defaults to a date range of "This Month". If you try to run a query of last month's gifts through a report set to this month, The Raiser's Edge will not have anything to report on.

In my experience, the most common instance of this message occurs when printing or previewing Donor Acknowledgement Letters. On one hand, this may be caused by something as simple as the constituents who are included in the letter not having any gifts to acknowledge. If this is the case, and you are simply trying to write a letter to your constituents rather than thanking them for a specific gift, you are better off using another mail function, such as Quick Letters.

On the other hand, though, is the most common cause behind this message, and the one I always look for first: The gifts have already been marked as Acknowledged. When merging Donor Acknowledgement Letters, you will receive a prompt asking you if you wish to mark the gifts as acknowledged. If you know that the letters you are merging are perfect the way they are, go ahead and click Yes. If you think you may have to go back and make some tweaks to the letter, click No. Once the gifts have been marked as Acknowledged, you will not be able to include them in your Donor Acknowledgement letters until you have changed the status back to Not Acknowledged. If you have already marked the gifts as Acknowledged, the best way to change them back to Not Acknowledged is through a Global Change.

Before you run any sort of global add, change, or delete, we always recommend that you back up your database. Also, when you are checking the acknowledge status of the gift, remember to look at the gift record itself. The acknowledge status listed in batch does not matter - that only shows what the status of the gift was before it was added as a record.

There are a number of factors that can cause this message common to multiple reports and mail functions. In addition to Gift Date, anything on the Filters tab (Campaign, Fund, Appeal, Letter Code) can also prompt this message, as well as records that are marked Inactive, Deceased, or No Valid Address. If you are running a conditional mail merge, the message will appear if none of your records match any of the conditional fields.

If you are still missing records, the Knowledgebase solution BB315710 is a great clearinghouse of possible causes and solutions for this error message no matter which mail function you are using.

Finally, in keeping with the theme of zero records, anyone who guessed that the answer to the Brain Buster in this month's issue of The User's Edge Newsletter was zero, you're right!

Sarah's Shortcuts: A Donor By Any Other Name

Sarah McBride — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:50:00 GMT

It might work with roses, but if you address a donor with a name other than what he indicated as his preferred addressee/salutation, you're not likely to get the same positive response. I realize it shouldn't be that big of a deal, but when someone addresses me as "Sara" without the h, I'm caught in a brief identity crisis (Sara who?) and am less inclined to appreciate the content of their actual message.

The same thing applies to your donors. Whenever you send a mailing, your message can significantly drop in value (or be completely overlooked) if you address them incorrectly. A huge part of fundraising is developing relationships with your constituents and making personal connections whenever you can. Get the name wrong and that connection may be short-lived.

So how do you avoid this obvious-yet-sneaky pitfall?

Make sure the names on the record are right.
- When adding new constituents to your database, be sure to spend a moment on the Addressees/Salutations tab. The bulk of your mailings will probably use the Primary Addressee and Primary Salutations fields, so verify the correct addressee/salutation formulas (BB26317) from Configuration are selected, or if using the Editable? checkbox, double-check for any possible spelling errors. (Don't forget the h!)
- If some of your mailings use additional addressees or salutations (BB96322) (e.g., for less formal or spouse-specific letters), make sure the right Type has been selected since this is what you'll use to pull in the corresponding name within the mailing. Note: Addressing Robert as "Bob" may establish a sense of camaraderie or cause offense if he never okayed a less formal approach, so just be sure the name matches up with the donor's preference, when known.
- Lastly, for donors with especially long names, it may be helpful to do a quick test for label truncation (BB103702) to see if another addressee/salutation type would be preferable.

Choose the correct addressee/salutation in your mailing.
When you're ready to prepare the actual mailing, select which addressee/salutation to use (BB386294) on the Fields to Include tab. The Raiser's Edge defaults to using constituents' individual names (e.g., Robert Hernandez), which isn't the end of the world, but this is where you can add a more personal touch.

Using the right name will help your mailings get off on a good start, though this is just one small part of relationship building. Please feel free to share other techniques you've developed within mailings, data entry, etc. for making more personal connections.

Happily yours,
Sarah

Sarah’s Shortcuts: A Mail Merge Match Made in Heaven

Sarah McBride — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:41:00 GMT

You’ve just finished printing letters and envelopes for all of the records in your database. There’s only one problem: The letters and envelopes are not in the same order!

This presents quite a dilemma when you’re trying to manually match each letter with its corresponding envelope. Unless you have an excessive amount of time on your hands, I’d like to suggest an easier method before you find yourself in a similar situation:

1. When setting up your letters, mark the Create output query checkbox at the bottom left of the General tab. This will prompt you to save a static query once the letters are merged.
2. On the General tab of your envelopes, include the output query from step one. The envelopes will automatically sort in the same order as the output query from your letters.

Note: The same concept applies for labels as well. Check out BB15665 for the instructions in Knowledgebase.