Can anyone point me toward any discussions among this forum or others regarding RE gift entry (batch),letter and tribute processing time, etc.? We are trying to get a sense as to how our processing time compares to other NPO's to see if we are adequately staffed for this role. We currently process about 12,500 gifts annually (2,050 of which are tribute gifts requiring linking or setting up records for those).

For audit/internal control reasons, the majority of our gifts go to a bank lockbox which picks up daily and deposits them. The bank then sends us hard copy data of each gift (copy of check, hard copy of gift remit coupon, actual BRE and any correspondence). Our gift processing staff person (1 full-time) enters gifts in batch mode, updates bio info addresses, etc., commits batch, generates receipt letters and processes tributes. Once we get this from bank (usually day following deposit) our goal is to send receipt letters and and tributes within 48 hours or less.

We DO NOT currently use any bar codes on our gift remittance coupons but coupon DOES include the constituent ID number which is used in batch process. We also DO NOT utilize any optical character reading (OCR) capability offered by our bank (like your utility bill has) which I understand would allow bank to send us all data electronically that could be imported into RE to further automate the gift entry process.

So in addition to my metrics question - Do any of you use bar coding and/or OCR - if so, does it work well for you and does it significantly speed up your gift processing time?

Thanks for your insights

Elliot Smith
Presbyterian Children's Homes and Services

It is very hard to develop metrics for this as there are so many variables involved from the other job responsibilities of the individual doing gift entry (constituent updates, address changes, acknowledgement letters, answering the phone, etc.) Where I was previously we had a 1/2 time (20 hours/week) processing 5,000 gifts a year but she also did all of the above things except answer a phone. We did not get a lot of tributes but did hold a few large events which require linking to the event module. I would not try to compare yourself to other orgs but rather determine your current metrics and set a goal of improving them. Unless you are prepared to pay a lot for your bank to create an importable file of gifts for you (they charge per keystroke) it is likely that you will still need to do a lot of additional data entry to the file they send you (which may just have the constituent last name and gift amount) before you can import it. Any time I've looked into it it was not cost effective for our size program. In my experience barcoding does not improve any gift processing time it only improves accuracy. The barcodes only populate a few fields in batch and there are still many more the DE person has to manually enter. I still recommend it for accuracy but do not expect improved gift procesing time from it. Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org! [i]--- Edited at 1/3/2008 3:43:32 PM by Melissa Graves[/i] [i]--- Edited at 1/3/2008 3:45:26 PM by Melissa Graves[/i]

OOPS I mean 5,000 gifts a year not a week. Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org!