Campaigns (and appeals)

Campaigns are tracking tools that let you categorize donations and link them to specific appeals. Appeals are fundraising communications or events used to solicit donations. An appeal might be anything from a "Remember to Give" postcard to a fundraising golf tournament. You can link donations to campaigns and individual appeals, which can give you insight into what approaches work—or don't—when it comes to fundraising.

Before setting up a campaign...

If you've completed all the setup steps for Donations, you'll be able to jump right in and start setting up a campaign. If not, to get the most use out of campaigns, make sure you've...

• Enabled online donations
• Set up at least one donation page
• Established at least one appeal medium

Setting up a campaign

Start by going to Donations > Campaigns.

1. Click Add a campaign.
2. Give the campaign a name.
3. Enter the goal amount—how much do you hope to raise with this campaign?
4. Enter the deadline—by what date do you hope to have reached your goal?
5. Typically, you'll leave the status set to Active. An Inactive campaign can't be linked to any new donations.
6. Finally, click Save.

If you need to edit any of the campaign's details, click and make your changes. Delete the campaign by clicking .

Campaign pages

After creating the campaign, click its name to go to its page. Here you can add appeals, link donation pages, and view statistics for donations and where they're coming from.

Appeals

Appeals let you track how well specific fundraising approaches work when soliciting donations. For example, you might send out a "Consider Giving" postcard with a link to an online donation page and your mailing address; at the same time you send out an email with the same message and a link only to the donation page. As the donations roll in, you can link each donation to one or the other of these appeals. You might then learn that the email campaign, while much cheaper and more engaging than the postcard campaign, netted you less in donations than the postcard campaign—which helped you land several large donations mailed to your school.

1. Click add next to Appeals.
2. Give the appeal a name. It's best to distinguish similar appeals with more descriptive names (donors won't ever see what name you give an appeal).
3. Choose the appropriate appeal medium.
4. Enter the date on which you made the appeal... say, when you clicked Send on the email or when you hit the links for the golf tournament.
5. Enter the cost; this will help you calculate your ROI.
6. Presumably, you'll leave the status set to Active; an inactive appeal can't be linked to new donations.
7. Finally, click Save.

Online donation pages

If you've enabled online donations, you can now connect online donation pages to your appeal. When you add a donation page to a campaign, that lets you automatically connect any donations received through that page to this campaign—and even individual appeals. You can add as many pages as you wish to your campaign; this means you can (and probably should) create a unique page for each appeal you've created.

• Here are the instructions for setting up a page.
• To link a page to a campaign:
  • Set up a new page here on the campaign by clicking add next to Online Donation Pages.
  • When adding or editing a page in Donations > Settings > Pages, choose a campaign from the drop-down.

Running a campaign

Campaigns are meant to help you categorize donations, and Populi will help you focus on connecting donations to the campaign and its appeals. Here are some of the routine tasks you'll perform during a campaign:

• You'll incorporate links to your online donation pages in various emails and announcements; since these are tied to your campaign and appeals, online donations will automatically be connected with them.
• Use the time period filters to review donations made during particular timeframes (donations this year, donations last month, etc.).
• Filter the Donations report to show donations connected to the campaign and its appeals—among many other possibilities.
• Filter the Donors report to show donors who've donated to your campaign and its appeals; you then have options to email them, tag them, and print mailing labels and envelopes... among other things!
• As you plan and execute new appeals, you'll add new appeals and donation pages to the campaign.
• Keep an eye on the ROI field in the campaign's Summary panel. ROI is calculated thusly: (Total Donations - Total Cost of all appeals) ÷ by Total Cost.
  • Say you've raised $10,000 on a campaign with three appeals totaling $500 in costs...
  • The campaign's ROI would be... 10000 - 500 = 9,500 ÷ 500 = $19 ROI.
  • So, for every dollar you spent on the campaign, you yielded $19 in donations.