I need suggestions on how to effecitvely solicit propects each year for our Annual Fund. We are drafting a letter that we want to merge one of three criteria into the letter--1)Given at $250-499 level one of last three years; 2) Have a Annual Fund proposal between $2502-499; of 3) have a Blacbaud Analytics Annual Giving Likelihood rating of 750 or more. Is there a better way than using proposals each year to solicit Annual Fund gifts?

I realize that this is an old string, but since this a topic that I would appreciate advice on, I thought I'd reply to bring it current.

At the beginning of each of the last three fiscal years, we have globally added about 500-800 Annual Fund ($500+) proposals to our system. We primarily moved to using proposals (RE:Search, which we had but weren't really using!) so that we could track 1) ask amount, 2) anticipated solicitation date, 3) anticipated letter segment (renewal, lapsed, upgrade, etc.) 4) actions on the proposal (follow-up phone calls, next step, etc.), and 5) proposal notes (verbal pledges, reasons for closing/declining, suggested ask amount for next year, etc.)

While it's been nice to be able to track all of this on a single proposal record (easier for our Annual Fund director), I am aware of the drawbacks: 1) large number of proposals in the system and growing number of entries in the Proposal Purpose table, 2) the amount of exporting, importing and general data manipulation involved in adding/editing/maintaining the proposals.

As the resident RE expert, I'm worried that future staff might not have the know-how to continue doing it this way. In previous years, they were simply globally adding Appeals, but then we realized Proposals could track so much more.

Does anyone have any alternate methods for tracking Annual Fund propects/asks in RE? Julie D. Hiland
Senior Manager of Donor Relations
Atlanta History Center
(404) 814-4109
[Email Removed]

The way I do it is to only create proposals for the Major Gift propsects. (which for us is a $1,000+ gift potential) These proposals are created only for prospects assigned to solicitors so that the responsibility for upkeep is on the gift officer (presumably). One year I created proposals for every potential major donor and the upkeep was unbearable so now they only get a proposal when they get a solicitor.

The proposal is separate from the appeals they may get, so unless the gift officer adds an approach restriction of no direct mail they get our major donor solicitation letters several times a year which I record as appeals. Depending on their giving in the last 36 months they may be in different segments (Current, LYBUNT, Lapsed) throughout the year so this is not recorded on the proposal. The proposal is more to track the cultivation of the individual and actions other than appeals as well as the status, asked/expected gift amount and anticipated date. For those not getting direct mail it also tracks the solicitation action.

For anyone under the major gift level we do not use proposals nor do we set targets or ask amounts. The ask amount on each appeal is done for each letter using the amount of their largest gift in the past 36 months + an increase. We evaluate the response rate and average gift size of the entire appeal and increase/decrease levels for this group to evaluate progress. It is not evaluated at the individual donor level. Melissa S. Graves
Director of Development Services
The Village for Families and Children
mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org
www.villageforchildren.org

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