We're thinking about making our donor records as paperless as possible. Is anyone else storing things like check copies, gift forms, and other gift-related correspondence on donor records in RE? What are your procedures?

Thanks in advance! Karen Warr
Development Associate
LifeWorks NW
14600 NW Cornell Road
Portland, OR 97229
(503) 645-3581, x2385
[Email Removed]

We thought we might do that when we got RE, but the labor involved scanning and attaching everything made us change our minds in a hurry. At this point we only attach actual correspondence, notes sent in with a donation, that sort of thing. We're back to paper filing otherwise. If someone has a clever paperless solution, though, I would love to hear it. Susan Ellzey Membership Services Director Mises Institute [Email Removed]

We enter all gifts through batch and store the paperwork with the batch - after five years we toss it out. This is of course for routine gifts - not endowment funds etc. [Email Removed] Chadwick School, California

No such thing as paperless! You can reduce the amount of paper you keep, but our field will never go paperless. It is great in theory but reality we need that check copy or documentation for some reason or another. My suggestion is to look at ways to reduce the amount of paper being used. Monica Solomon Director, Development Operations and Research John G. Shedd Aquarium [Email Removed] (312) 692-3282