Oh and you would NEVER want to code on every single record who receives what.  You would set basic criteria that you would use every time and only hard code the exceptions that would not meet the basic criteria.

For example for every newsletter mailing you would create a dynamic query of everyone who made a gift in the past 5 years (for example) and anyone who is coded SEND NEWSLETTER (and maybe also volunteers, etc.).  Then you would exclude anyone who is coded NO NEWSLETTER (and maybe also staff, etc.).  Those coded as SEND NEWSLETTER would be anyone who does not give or has not given in a long time but should still get the newsletter (planned giving prospects, former board, etc.) but that list should be fairly small.

You would never want to hard code all these people as SEND NEWSLETTER as your donor pool is a dynamic list.  It changes every day. If someone is responsible for making sure that those who make new gifts is coded it is a never ending job and there will always be some human error exceptions.  A dynamic query is much more accurate.  You also can drop people from the list if they have not donated in more than 5 years very simply in a query rather than having to always be removing codes.

finance person out today, I am going to check with them tomorrow. thanks for all your help

Frances,

If I were using Attributes to track mailing sent only that weren't gift related:

I would set up a Constituent Attribute of Newsletters  and then have a drop down list (Table) That lists the newsletters.

For who to send the mailings to:I would use Standard Queries (Based on donor giving, committees, boards, employees or whoever should receive) for each newsletter or invitation as Melissa suggests and then Globally add this attribute to all that were mailed this newsletter (unless you use one of the canned segmenting functions that would add the constituent appeal automatically). I would use the Solicit Code field as an exclusionary (Do not Solicit, Do Not Mail, No Spring Direct Mail, Do Not Invite, or whatever criteria of folks that would be one off exclusions)

Invitations can be done the same way. Now that being said, if your organzation is heavy on Event invitations or newletters you may want to go with a slightly different setup either by Year or By Event Type or Group. This would just be for easier viewing reasons on the record

Example1: If you hold a specific event 4 times a year, every year you may want to set this up as 2009 Event with a drop down table using the 4 specific events

Example 2: If you hold an event annually you may want to set it up as that specific event and have the drop down be the year. Gala with drop downs of 2008, 2009, etc.

Example 3: If you have multiple newsletters with specific names that are sent out on specific schedules you can set them up like the events mentioned previously.

Healthy Decisions Newsletter with a dropdown of the schedule (Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010)or

Newsletters: with the drop down of newsletter and date (Healthy Decisions Spring 2009, Friends And Partners Summer 2009, Healthy Decisions Fall 2009)

For appeals or solicitations for money I would defintely use the appeal functionality as designed.

Dear Laurel,

 I like what you said a lot.  It works nicely with Solicit Codes, too.  I had been talking with someone about Solicit Codes on another forum, Fund Services.  The person used Solicit Codes in conjunction with Attributes to fruther define how to mail to people, which is good, too.  I like what you have suggested for tracking mailings sent, and I think the ED will like it, too.  The ED reviews a constituent profile for the constituent every time she signs a thank you for a gift, so she knows where she likes to see things on the profile. 

 Thank you so much,

Frances

We also use the appeals tab. For mailings that are not solicitations I used letters as the appeal code. For example: Annual Appeal solicitations might be coded as 1000  Annual Appeal, then an invitation to an event which is not a solicitation per se would be EVENT09 Invitation to BIG EVENT 2009. That way gift processors know that they will use the numbers to do gift entry. I kept the number sequencing to make it easy, thus:

1000  Annual Campaign  1000 Annual Fund  1000 Annual Appeal for tracking regular solicitations that are part of the annual cycle  and

9000 Event Campaign    9000 Annual Dinner Fund  9000 Annual Dinner Ticket (9001 Annual Dinner Sponsor, 9002 Annual Dinner Underwriter, 9003 Annual Dinner Auction Item, etc.)

Non-Solicitation Mailings would be something like:  NEWS09 Newsletter, PRES President's Letter,

I hope that helps.