FundSvcs Community

Hello everyone,

I'm asking for some advice. My team is working to develop guidelines for activity tracking on philanthropic activities. We use Salesforce as our CRM. Our structure is rather decentralized which makes it hard to keep track of what other staff are doing. We have 22 dedicated fundraisers who fundraise for the organization overall, and an additional 20-30 other staff, mostly Executive Directors and Program Staff, who handle a handful of grant relationships specific to their program or department. We find that sometimes another staff person is already talking to the funder we're approaching, but we didn't know because the other staff didn't record it in Salesforce. Sometimes we don't find out until the grant is already awarded. 

As a result my team is trying to tackle the communication issue at the source and set the expectations for data entry - that all prospects / grantors should be entered in Salesforce and that all activities should be tracked (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.) 

I'm wondering if anyone has guidelines they could share around activity data entry. Thanks!
Leslie

Hello everyone,

I'm asking for some advice. My team is working to develop guidelines for activity tracking on philanthropic activities. We use Salesforce as our CRM. Our structure is rather decentralized which makes it hard to keep track of what other staff are doing. We have 22 dedicated fundraisers who fundraise for the organization overall, and an additional 20-30 other staff, mostly Executive Directors and Program Staff, who handle a handful of grant relationships specific to their program or department. We find that sometimes another staff person is already talking to the funder we're approaching, but we didn't know because the other staff didn't record it in Salesforce. Sometimes we don't find out until the grant is already awarded. 

As a result my team is trying to tackle the communication issue at the source and set the expectations for data entry - that all prospects / grantors should be entered in Salesforce and that all activities should be tracked (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.) 

I'm wondering if anyone has guidelines they could share around activity data entry. Thanks!
Leslie

Hello everyone,

I'm asking for some advice. My team is working to develop guidelines for activity tracking on philanthropic activities. We use Salesforce as our CRM. Our structure is rather decentralized which makes it hard to keep track of what other staff are doing. We have 22 dedicated fundraisers who fundraise for the organization overall, and an additional 20-30 other staff, mostly Executive Directors and Program Staff, who handle a handful of grant relationships specific to their program or department. We find that sometimes another staff person is already talking to the funder we're approaching, but we didn't know because the other staff didn't record it in Salesforce. Sometimes we don't find out until the grant is already awarded. 

As a result my team is trying to tackle the communication issue at the source and set the expectations for data entry - that all prospects / grantors should be entered in Salesforce and that all activities should be tracked (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.) 

I'm wondering if anyone has guidelines they could share around activity data entry. Thanks!
Leslie

Hi John and Isaac,

Thank you - yes, we definitely do need to tackle the accountability and motivation piece. However, I think we're making progress on that front, have been getting buy-in from leadership that this is important. I'm actually wondering more about the nuts-and-bolts recommendations of how we should instruct fundraisers to input data (as Isacc calls it, the UI/UX).

I was wondering if someone has an SOP or documentation of their organization's guidelines for activity tracking which they could share. For example, some of our fundraisers have been asking whether they should document every single email or only "important" emails. If it's only "important" emails, what counts as important? Also, what categories of activities their organization tracks - such as in-person meetings, phone meetings, etc. I appreciate John's note about stating clearly how long the fundraiser has to document the activity. 

Hello everyone,

I'm asking for some advice. My team is working to develop guidelines for activity tracking on philanthropic activities. We use Salesforce as our CRM. Our structure is rather decentralized which makes it hard to keep track of what other staff are doing. We have 22 dedicated fundraisers who fundraise for the organization overall, and an additional 20-30 other staff, mostly Executive Directors and Program Staff, who handle a handful of grant relationships specific to their program or department. We find that sometimes another staff person is already talking to the funder we're approaching, but we didn't know because the other staff didn't record it in Salesforce. Sometimes we don't find out until the grant is already awarded. 

As a result my team is trying to tackle the communication issue at the source and set the expectations for data entry - that all prospects / grantors should be entered in Salesforce and that all activities should be tracked (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.) 

I'm wondering if anyone has guidelines they could share around activity data entry. Thanks!
Leslie

Hi John and Isaac,

Thank you - yes, we definitely do need to tackle the accountability and motivation piece. However, I think we're making progress on that front, have been getting buy-in from leadership that this is important. I'm actually wondering more about the nuts-and-bolts recommendations of how we should instruct fundraisers to input data (as Isacc calls it, the UI/UX).

I was wondering if someone has an SOP or documentation of their organization's guidelines for activity tracking which they could share. For example, some of our fundraisers have been asking whether they should document every single email or only "important" emails. If it's only "important" emails, what counts as important? Also, what categories of activities their organization tracks - such as in-person meetings, phone meetings, etc. I appreciate John's note about stating clearly how long the fundraiser has to document the activity. 

Hello everyone,

I'm asking for some advice. My team is working to develop guidelines for activity tracking on philanthropic activities. We use Salesforce as our CRM. Our structure is rather decentralized which makes it hard to keep track of what other staff are doing. We have 22 dedicated fundraisers who fundraise for the organization overall, and an additional 20-30 other staff, mostly Executive Directors and Program Staff, who handle a handful of grant relationships specific to their program or department. We find that sometimes another staff person is already talking to the funder we're approaching, but we didn't know because the other staff didn't record it in Salesforce. Sometimes we don't find out until the grant is already awarded. 

As a result my team is trying to tackle the communication issue at the source and set the expectations for data entry - that all prospects / grantors should be entered in Salesforce and that all activities should be tracked (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.) 

I'm wondering if anyone has guidelines they could share around activity data entry. Thanks!
Leslie

Hi John and Isaac,

Thank you - yes, we definitely do need to tackle the accountability and motivation piece. However, I think we're making progress on that front, have been getting buy-in from leadership that this is important. I'm actually wondering more about the nuts-and-bolts recommendations of how we should instruct fundraisers to input data (as Isacc calls it, the UI/UX).

I was wondering if someone has an SOP or documentation of their organization's guidelines for activity tracking which they could share. For example, some of our fundraisers have been asking whether they should document every single email or only "important" emails. If it's only "important" emails, what counts as important? Also, what categories of activities their organization tracks - such as in-person meetings, phone meetings, etc. I appreciate John's note about stating clearly how long the fundraiser has to document the activity. 

Hello everyone,

I'm asking for some advice. My team is working to develop guidelines for activity tracking on philanthropic activities. We use Salesforce as our CRM. Our structure is rather decentralized which makes it hard to keep track of what other staff are doing. We have 22 dedicated fundraisers who fundraise for the organization overall, and an additional 20-30 other staff, mostly Executive Directors and Program Staff, who handle a handful of grant relationships specific to their program or department. We find that sometimes another staff person is already talking to the funder we're approaching, but we didn't know because the other staff didn't record it in Salesforce. Sometimes we don't find out until the grant is already awarded. 

As a result my team is trying to tackle the communication issue at the source and set the expectations for data entry - that all prospects / grantors should be entered in Salesforce and that all activities should be tracked (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.) 

I'm wondering if anyone has guidelines they could share around activity data entry. Thanks!
Leslie