Hello All!

I am hoping someone might have suggestions to solve an issue I've run into.

In the past, my organization has put data into Raisers Edge - but has then exported that data and kept track of their Annual Fund Revenue Projections and current status in an Excel spreadsheet. This has created a dual entry issue that I'm trying to get rid of.

Has anyone used Raisers Edge to track Projected Revenue for the coming year? If so - what field do you use? We had originally thought we'd use the Target field - but because this field is open text and not a numeric field - we can't get it to pull into the Pivot Report that we're using to track totals...

I guess my question has a few layers -

Is there place to be tracking projections for the coming year in RE?

Has anyone used the Target field for this - and if so, how have you reported the total projection from RE?

Does anyone use Pivot Reporting?

Is there anyway to convert a free text field (like the Target field) into a numeric field so that it can be used to come up with totals in a Pivot Report?

Thanks in advance - Nicole

Nicole:

I wish I had a solution for you.  I'm looking to solve this too.  There are all kinds of monster Excel Workbooks being used in our org.  I'd love to simplify some of that.  I was hoping to find some suggestions on the Forum.  Have you gotten anywhere since you first posted this?

I can tell you that I did come up with a simple Pivot Report that I call the Appeal Categories Report.  It's designed to show a broad view of the methods or approaches used to raise $ from individuals over the FY.  We have some broad Appeal Categories for Individual Giving: Annual Appeals, Major Gift Proposals, Other Giving & Unsolicited.  The Pivot Report shows the total raised by quarter for each of this categories.  I have a separate worksheet that includes the projections & then I used the Pivot Report to update the actuals.  That works nicely.  But, I'm very interested in a more efficient way of coming up with the projections.  We do use the Prospect Tab for all of our Grant Proposals & Major Gift Proposals.  So, in those areas we are able to track Amounts Expected. But, it's all of the other areas that are trickier to project (annual appeals). Do you have the Search Module (aka Prospect Tab)?