We're trying to figure out the best way to track thank you letters and welcome packets sent to constituents who, by giving to our university, become a member of one of the giving clubs we have (we have about 7 or so).

There is a button in the membership module that lets you track renewal letters sent, but there isn't one for welcome letters and packets.

We thought the best way might be to create an attribute within the membership module and create separate categories for each of these letters. I was just wondering what other Raiser's Edge users are doing and if there are any ideas that might work better.

While we realize we could also create an action or appeal, the Director of this membership program prefers to have something within the membership module that she can easily use and track.

If anyone has any suggestions/ideas, please share!

Thanks so much,

Linda

Atributes would work, but we always used actions as it is the best place to record this communication and you could also create an action track to remind you to send the welcome pack and letter etc.  Why is your Director so keen not to use actions? 

Thanks for your reply! Yes, we had suggested actions, but she wanted a quick way of looking at whether or not someone had received their thank you letter or welcome packet, within the membership module itself. I've done extensive research on this and the general consensus is that actions would be the best way to track these, just as you suggest.

Assuming you generate the packets when a gift is made and the gift acknowledgement letter is included in the packet, just use the Donor Acknowledgement Letters function in Mail, and mark the gift as "acknowledged" once the membership packet has gone out.  If you already do this, adding an action or attribute would be double-work.

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I am too!  I thought it was just me!  HELLOOOOO MODERATOR

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Hi Linda,

You may have resolved this issue already but I have a client who does similar type contact with members.  As mentioned in one thread, the donor acknowledgment function in mail can work great to manage the 'welcome packet' - since you likely only send that out once.  The gift would of course be linked to the module, so your director should be happy from that part.  You can then set up membership cards as a 'custom data file' and actually design a letter (not card) to be used for the thank you letter/renewal piece.  Annually when the members renew this would trigger the card to be 'not printed' and therefore you could re-generate thank you letters from memberships.  It will display when the card was printed (i.e, thank you) and on the Mem History tab you'd have the archive of past thank you letters.

Just another option for you.

 Sincerely,

Matt Haynes

Haynes Consulting Group, LLC

matt@haynesconsultinggroup.com 

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