We are looking for someone to guide us on the average number of gifts per day we should be processing. We recently had a staffing change and are having a hard time convincing our company's accounts payable department why we cannot keep up on the gifts coming in. There are 2 people currently processing gifts. One person strictly processes our direct mail type pledges and pledge payments. She also has a secretarial type position so she is answering phones, greeting guests, etc. as she is processing. She books the initial pledges as they are reported from the direct mail house which include both new accounts and renewals. She then processes pledge payments and one-time donation as they come in the daily mail. She processes both types of gifts in 2 seperate batches daily. How many pledges and checks should she be expected to be booking a day in her current environment? The other person booking wears many hats. She is our database manager. She runs all financial reports, queries, etc. She must balance monthly with our AP department. She merges and prints all acknowledgement letters. She validates and commits all batches (including direct mail). She processes all memorials, special funds gifts, tribute gifts, pledges, payroll deductions, pledge reminders, pledge payments, campaign gifts, annual fund gifts, gifts to our 2 affiliated hospitals, high-end donor club gifts, etc. Many of our gifts have several letters that are generated for one gifts. With all that is on her plate, how many gifts should she reasonably be expected to booking in a day?

Unfortunately I cannot answer your question, but am very interested in hearing feedback as well. What are the procedures for other organizations when it comes to gift entry and coordinating with your finance department as well as the timing of acknowledgment (or other) letters?

Sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Our Development Office is only 5 years old. We began with one Director and one data entry person and now we have 5 people with expectation of two more to be hired. We process anywhere from a min. of 20 to 100 donations per week (after a direct mail) doing two to three deposits/week. Batch is only used for direct mail gift entry and not for our tributes. Our turnaround is 1-2 days. We have a dedicated data entry/acknowledgement person, an assistant who does address/correction and other database cleanup as directed 50% then assists with acknowledgement the other 50%. As Database Administrator (30 hrs/wk) I maintain the database, run reports of all kinds, generate lists, mailing labels and database cleanup tasks as well as interface with accounting. The other staff are directly involved with fundraising. Good luck to you and I hope this helps.

I have been trying to get information on the same thing. Our organization processes an average of 50 gifts per week for the majority of the year. We have two times during the year when our gift average moves to 100 gifts per week, and at year-end we average anywhere from 150-225 gifts per week. Since I started a year-and-a-half ago, we have only had one person on staff covering the processing of gifts (me), including the production and mailing of the receipts/acknowledgement letters (and sometimes also including the signing of the letters). I also have responsibility for training other staff on Raisers Edge, for maintaining the database, running reports, cleaning up the errors my predecessors made, editing appeal letters, writing monthly acknowledgement letters, and overseeing the production and mailing of the appeal letters. On three occasions, we have hired one temporary staff person to help process donations. The appeal letters (once I have formatted them and produced the merge data files) are printed by another staff member, or they are sent to a mail house for processing, depending on the number of appeal letters being produced. I have been given the goal of turning receipts around within two business days. Most of the year this is not too much of a stretch (except when we are preparing an appeal). I do all receipting through batch, and I also now use conditional mail merges to print all of the receipts/acknowledgement letters (which are combined on one document, letter on top, receipt on the bottom). During our three periods of large-volume donations, receipting slows down considerably, especially since the majority of the gifts are coming from donors who are new to our organization. During those periods, even with help, I am lucky if I can turn receipts around in two weeks. I have found that three major factors play into how quickly I can produce the receipts: the number of receipts, the number of new donors, and the number of other responsibilities I have to carry out at the same time. I feel we are understaffed for all that needs to be done. I hope we will hire a second person to assist with the data entry/receipting process, in order to free up more of my time for the other responsibilities that I have. The biggest question is whether we should be hiring a full-time or part-time person to cover the data entry-receipting process. I have been charged with finding out how many staff other organizations have, what their responsibilities cover, how many receipts they are processing on average per week, and how quickly they are turning around receipts/acknowledgement letters with the staff that they have.

We have two people booking gifts -- one does Auxiliary gifts, the other does all the other gifts. We average about 50 gifts a week except after direct mail appeals and membership mailings where we go up to 100 or more gifts a week. The person doing the other gifts is a department secretary in addition to booking and acknowledging the gifts. She does tributes and direct mail gifts as well as whatever shows up in the mail. Mindy hands me (the database administrator) the upper level gifts to acknowledge as I do personal letters for them. She is turning around gifts even when there is a lot in under 48 hours. The personal letters I do, our president has been giving me a week when we're busy. Mindy is responsible for making all the copies to the appropriate development people as well as securing the deposit for our finance department twice a week. Our Auxiliary person is more of a special events coordinator in addition to her gift batching duties. She is more consistent in doing about 100 gifts a week because she is constantly running trips and programs for our members. She also turns gifts around in 48 hours. She also sells plaques which we do not do at all. Mindy's gifts usually total about $25,000 a week; our Auxiliary person maybe $2,500. We have been told that even though we want to hire another part time person, we'll probably have to wait at least one more fiscal year. We have taken the approach that these gifts pay the bills and are our priority. So maybe Mindy will get to do our batches and letters one day, but not be able to file until three or four days later. Luckily its working. When you wear so many hats, the important part is always to prioritize. And while your accounts payable person doesn't understand, does your boss? the president? your chairman? Melissa Brown Abramson Center for Jewish Life www.abramsoncenter.org

I have been where many of you are currently. It took me and my director 4 years to make folks understand that 2 full-time and 2 part time folks is not enough. My suggestion to first have each person write down everything they do that is apart of their job description and list those extras. Determine how much time is spent on each. I did acknowledgement letters for 4 1/2 years. My staff consists of 2 full-time and 2 part timers. During our peak times, I hire 2 more folks for up to 4 months. If you would like more details I would be happy to speak with you. [Email Removed]