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Things to know to effectively use IconCMO

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church-audit-checklistMembership

Must Know #1: (Household or Member)

Understanding the difference between a Household and a Member is important and is defined as follows:

Definition of a Household: A Household is a physical location where people reside and the name of the household represents the adults that are responsible for the loaction. It does not represent an individual.

Definition of a Member: A Member is a person that resides at the location. Every member of a family should have a member record in the system.

Whenever you are doing something in the system ask yourself the question: Do I need this for member(s) or household(s). Example: I need to create mailing labels for people that receive the newsletter. Are these labels going to be sent to individual members or to the households? Chances are they are going to be sent to the Households. If this is the answer then you would go to People -> Groups -> Grp-Households. Create a category called Mailings and a sub-group called Newsletter. Add the households to the group and print your labels. Or you can go to People -> Households -> Hse-Reports -> Household List and select to print labels for all Households belonging to one or more status groups.

If you are adding a new Person in the system that is the only member of the new household, one household record would be added refelecting the location and one member record representing the individual living at that location.

For a married couple the household name should contain both the names of the parents. The household ‘First Name’ would be something like John & Mary. Once the household is created both John, Mary and any kids they might have would be added into the household as members.

Must Know #2 (Running Reports using Multiple Status Codes)

Many of the reports give you the ability to select status codes. Multilple status codes can be selected by holding the “Ctrl” key down on the keyboard. While the Ctrl key is down use the mouse to click on the status codes you wish to use. When done selecting release the Ctrl key and run the report.

Must Know #3 (Adding Status Codes)

Status codes are used to define the relationship of a household or member to the church. When the system is initially loaded it contains the default status codes Active, Inactive, Visitor and Delete. However, you can add additional status codes by going to Organization -> Preferences – Church Membership. Locate the field “Select Drop Down List”. Click the down arrow and select Status. Go to field “New / Modified Value” and enter the new status code and click “Save New/Modified”.

Please Note: It is not a good practice to define a new status code if a household or person can fall into more than one status code. Example: Adding a status code of Choir and Usher would be bad because a person could belong to both groups as be Active. In this case the person should have a status of ‘Active’ and belong to both the ‘Choir’ group and the ‘Usher’ group. Use the Groups section to classify Choir members and Ushers.

The most common Status codes we see are: (This field has a maximum of 15 characters so some of these are abbreviated).

    • Active
    • Inactive
    • Visitor
    • Delete
    • Active NonMem ( Abbreviation for Active Non-Member )
    • Associate Mem ( Associate Member )
    • Friend
    • Prospect
    • Shutin

Accounting

Must Know #4: (Contribution Funds Vs Accounting Funds)

This section talks you through the process of setting up the link between the Contribution system and the Accounting system. In order to use this link go to Organization -> Preferences -> Church Membership. Set the “Link to Fund Accounting” to Yes and click save. This tells the system that whenever contributions are posted the system should also update the accounting system accordingly. This is a powerful feature of IconCMO and can be used to insure that activity in the contribution section is always recorded in the accounting system.

There are two different types of Funds that can be created in IconCMO.

  1. Contribution Funds
  2. Accounting Funds

Contribution Funds (C-Funds) are funds that people contribute to. Contribution Statements are printed from information that is posted to C-Funds.

Accounting Funds (A-Funds) are funds that are defined by the financial group in the church for the purpose of managing the finances of the church. For example: In addition to the ‘General Fund’ (which is a required fund) the board might have a Building Fund and a Charities Fund. A separate ‘Statement of Activities’ (sometimes referred to as a Profit and Loss statement) and a ‘Statement of Financial Position’ (sometimes referred to a Balance Sheet) can be run for each fund defined as well as for all accounting funds combined. It is important to note that all contribution funds must direct its donations into one of the accounting funds. First, the bank account that receives the donations is defined and second, the Contribution Revenue account is defined.

Below is Example:

Your church offers the church four different c-funds which they can contribute to.

  1. General Fund
  2. Building Fund
  3. Memorial Fund
  4. Flowers Fund

Each of these C-Funds will be defined by going to Contributions -> Management -> Cont-Maintenance and adding the C-Funds names. You want to print a Profit and Loss for General, Building and Charities but you would like the Flowers Fund to appear as Revenue to the Charities Fund. You need to create three A-Funds by going to General Ledger -> Funds -> Fund Maintenance. From the Fund Maintenance window you will add the Building and Charities Funds (The General Fund already exists). Then go to General Ledger -> GL -> Chart of Accounts. There needs to be at least one Contribution Revenue account to define where the revenue is coming from. In this case let’s define three revenue accounts and call them:

  1. General Contributions
  2. Building Contributions
  3. Memorial Contributions

Note that we use the term ‘Contributions’ instead of ‘Revenue’. This was done simply to demonstrate that these are chart of account names and not funds. In addition to the the Contribution Revenue accounts we need at least on bank account. Let’s call that ‘Checking’.

Now we need to create the links between the C-Funds to the Accounting system. Go to Contributions -> Management -> Cont-Maintenance, select the General Fund in the left scroll window and press the button titled ‘Accounting Link’. A window opens displaying the fund selected and three drop down boxes. The example below shows how we might make the assignments. Notice how contributions to the ‘Flowers Fund’ is directed to the accounting fund called Memorial. Revenue from the Flowers Fund will appear in the Statement of Activites’ for Charities.

General Fund (C-Fund)

  • Accounting Fund Affected = General Fund
  • Bank Account = Checking
  • Contribution Account = General Contributions

Building Fund (C-Fund)

  • Accounting Fund Affected = Building Fund
  • Bank Account = Checking
  • Contribution Account = Building Contributions

Memorial Fund (C-Fund)

  • Accounting Fund Affected = Charities Fund
  • Bank Account = Checking
  • Contribution Account = Memorial Contributions

Flowers Fund (C-Fund)

  • Accounting Fund Affected = Charities Fund
  • Bank Account = Checking (whatever checking or savings account you want the money deposited)
  • Contribution Account = Memorial Contributions

Press Release: Want to Give Church Members an Easier Way to Make Donations?

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Announcing a new integration between IconCMO church management software and Give by Text

Icon Systems, Inc. and Vanco Payment Solutions are excited to announce a new integration between IconCMO church management and accounting software and Give by Text, a way for churches to accept donations via text messaging.

iconcmo-givebytext

In October 2009, Icon Systems released its first software integration with Vanco. The integration allowed customers using IconCMO church management software to import donations received through online donations, EFT transactions, and check scanning and have them post seamlessly to donors’ contribution records and the accounting side of the system. This new integration allows customers to also import Give by Text transactions into IconCMO.

Donors have come to expect convenient giving options. Is your church missing out on donations by not offering e-giving?

Vanco recently surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. churchgoers on their attitudes, behaviors and preferences toward giving. The findings show now more than ever that donors want multiple ways to give. Sometimes they want to put a check in the donation plate, other times they prefer to make a credit card donation online, via text message, or at a kiosk.

“Churches need to know how their members feel about giving so they can offer the methods that will best support their mission.” says Kevin Lee, CEO of Vanco Payment Solutions. “We’re always working to provide churches with the most updated strategies, tools, and data so they can make informed decisions about their stewardship.”

Vanco’s research highlights that churches are not yet consistently providing their members with the convenient giving options their members say they want. This creates a “Giving Gap” and churches could be missing out. Vanco can help close the gap by offering churches a full suite of e-Giving solutions – including online credit/debit card processing, Give by Text, and Give by Kiosk.

The research also highlighted the need for churches to add modern giving solutions such as text and kiosk options to their stewardship programs. Only 7 percent of respondents said they have the option to give by text, and only 6 percent of churchgoers said they have the option to give through a kiosk. But over four times as many churchgoers said they would use those options if they were available. With Vanco’s Give by Text, members can contribute by sending a message from their smartphones in less time than it takes to write a check. Give by Kiosk is a portable tabletop unit that accepts credit and debit card contributions and can email or print receipts on the spot.

Read the rest of the press release on Yahoo Finance.

Online Giving

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Having multiple ways people can donate online to the church is an absolute, not a nice to have church process — even for the smallest of churches.

According to Blackbaud 2014 Charitable Giving Report, many people are surprised to learn that fundraising activities is still less than 10% — currently at 8.8% for faith-based organizations in regards to online donations.

However, we need to have some context to this number. Blackbaud states — “As a point of comparison, it is helpful to look at online purchases as a percent of total retail sales. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, e-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2014 accounted for 6.6% of total sales*.” So let’s break that down – online sales for products purchased online is 6.6% and online giving, specifically faith based charities, is at 8.8%. With online sales at 6.6% and faith based online donations are at 8.8% –> do you still believe online donations don’t play a part in your strategic organizational plans? This data alone shows the need for churches to have this as an added channel to the traditional methods of giving. It should not be an obstruction for your donors. 🙂

Let’s look at the size of the organization broken down into three sectors based on size – Small (less than 1M), Medium (1M – 10M) and Large (10M+). Keep in mind that this is any non-profit organization, not just churches, using a sample set of 4,798 organizations. Most churches will say they are too small to have an online donation system and probably would fall into the small category. However, the percentage of donation by each organizational size, is 7.4%, 5.6%, and 7.2%, respectively. So according to the data, the smallest organizations have the highest percentage of fundraising versus the other two, in regards to online donations. In other words it’s the smaller organizations that are gaining the most ground in regards to online donations year over year. Do you still believe your church is ‘too’ small for online donations?

Let’s look at another statistic. Online giving grew 8.9% from 2013 to 2014. Most would say 8.9% sounds small. It’s actually a 1.3 billion dollar increase across the sample set of organizations. Additionally, this increase came on the toes of an increase of 13.5% in 2013 from 2012. So in a span between 2012 to 2014, online giving went up 22.4%. People are shifting to online as they shop and donate.

Should your church be part of the online giving trend that only appears to get stronger each year?

Summary

The data clearly shows the need for churches to get online donations in their channel of giving solutions. It used to be an option in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. That’s not the case anymore. Most people can’t remember the last time they carried cash in their wallet, but I bet they know where their debit card is. 🙂 Increasing a church’s donations should happen where the donors are at, so to speak. They are in the electronic age and if the church doesn’t meet them there, I’m sure they will donate elsewhere.

*Credit goes to Blackbaud for the data and the quoted material above which this blog entry relied on.

Are Donations tied to Church Staff Development?

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Are donations tied to church staff development?

Let’s first define what church staff development is. It can take many forms from team building exercises to educational courses for pastors, treasurers, secretaries, and so on. It can be leadership training sessions or church administration classes for certification in one or more areas. The underlying theme in all of these, is the enrichment of the church staff to fine tune the skills they have, increase their knowledge, or develop new skills.

Some may believe that church staff don’t need ongoing training and education. My response is that most people in the work force get training on the job or training classes to become better at what they do. Church staff are no different. Many skills that are required for a senior pastor, a worship pastor, church administrator, and other church positions require ongoing professional enrichment just like any professional position. This is why there should be an annual budget for these activities for each church employee.

When leadership and church staff aren’t given the opportunity to advance their knowledge base or skills, like sermon content and delivery, the congregation as a whole suffers. For example, a senior pastor’s sermons may not offer new insights for the congregation to glean from. A treasurer may not know about new laws for accounting that affect churches, if he doesn’t stay updated with continuing education courses every so often. When a senior pastor or treasurer aren’t given the opportunity to expand their knowledge, what does that do for the people they lead? It hinders the group as a whole.

How is staff development tied to donations?

People are moved to donate to an organization many times by an emotional tie or they believe in the causes the organization’s stands for. Using the senior pastor example, what happens if new insights aren’t offered in sermons? People tend to grow disenchanted with the organization’s message. Some comments from the congregation may be — ‘I didn’t learn anything new during the sermon’ or ‘didn’t we just hear this same sermon a few months ago?’  So if people become disenchanted with the message, their emotional connection to the church becomes less, which may decrease their donations over time.

Using another example of the treasurer who accounts for donations. What happens if his training is not up to par and he/she accidentally accounts for the money without taking a new law into account? One of the fastest way people leave an organization is when their donations are not properly accounted for or distributed.

Quotes from Leaders:

  1. ‘Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other’ – John F Kennedy.
  2. ‘Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them’ – John C Maxwell
  3. ‘If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader’ – John Quincy Adams
  4. ‘Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower’ – Steve Jobs
  5. ‘The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership’ – Colin Powell

Summary –

The examples above show how continuing training is needed in only two key areas of the church. Each church has unique needs and will have to answer the question, ‘what other areas may need training respective to the given staff member’s area of responsibility?’ Staff should have the opportunity to hone their skills and become better in their area of responsibility. These educational enrichment seminars don’t have to drain the church’s bank account using a little creativity and budgeting. It may take a few churches to get together to bring in an expert in the tax and donation field, for example. What ever the method is, shouldn’t the church be giving the very best to its congregation that supports them financially?

Communication and Church Donations (p2)

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Here is the second part to the 2 part series for Communication and Church Donations. If you haven’t read the first part you may want to read it first. 🙂

4. Clear communication also dispels the other person’s syndrome. The old story of — why should I donate to the same cause because someone else will step up? Some clear factual information can dispel this during presentations. Let’s use two scenarios:

A. Say the goal is $20,000 for some water wells and the congregational room has 125 people listening to the presenter. That boils down to about $160.00 per person if everyone gives or $320.00 per married family. Most people listening to the presentation can take a very quick conscientious inventory of the goal, approximately how many people, and figure out the amount per person. Many, if not more, of these observations will determine if they give or not.

B. What if the presenter, without giving confidential details, gave clear information about the percentage of people (IE 65%) that gave last year, the average amount of the donation ($250.00) along with the information above in scenario 1? With that information the family’s amount quickly climbs to about $493.00, instead of $320.00. Knowing these additional facts inform potential donors a lot about what’s needed for the cause.

When the average donations are less than what’s needed per family, it really shows that everyone has to pull together to help. This information helps dispel the other person syndrome quickly.

5. a.) The lack of commitment may not be present because the maturity hasn’t grown to the point where the person is comfortable making the commitment. The person hasn’t moved from the ‘Maybe I will become a (…) when I grow up’, to an action of laying out the specific steps that they need to execute. In churches, one example is pledging. Even though a pledge is not legally binding and your circumstances could change, a commitment shows maturity. Another reason is that a commitment may be because the person doesn’t have that personal connection, yet.

b.) The lack of spiritual maturity is unique as it could be the amount of time the person takes with the organization. Or, it could be their own spiritual walk. The organization shouldn’t make it any harder with unclear communication.

c.) Unclear communications attribute to the lack of understanding and a clear demonstrated need to the donors. If the church can’t present a clear need for a mission to possible donors, then that is a large hurdle to overcome. A lack of understanding could be mitigated by asking yourself, would a total outsider understand my message if I presented it to them? Would the literature, power point slides, presentation, and so on, tell the story and allow them to be personally invested in the cause? As mentioned in the points above, a person gives when they feel connected to something — the story must make that connection.

Summary:

Communication to donors are paramount to ensure they don’t lose interest, understand the goals for the donations, and what’s considered a successful campaign. Has your ministry team sat down and discussed how each mission will communicate to their donors? When was the last time the organization sent anything about the donor support missions and projects aside from the annual statement for donations? These are just some questions to start the communication conversation, as every church must take their own communication inventory.

Communication and Church Donations (p1)

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Communications and church donations go hand in hand. Let’s look at some reasons why people give to a particular cause.

  1. They see tangible differences made by their contributions.
  2. They have a personal connection to a cause.
  3. They feel they’re a part of something great.

What are some of the possible reasons people don’t donate?

  1. Manual forms or websites asking too much information to process a donation.
  2. A lack of understanding (communication) for the church’s mission or completed projects with past donated monies.
  3. Losing the personal connection to the mission.
  4. The thought that someone else will donate so why should they? The other person syndrome. 🙂
  5. Lack of commitment, spiritual maturity, understanding, or a clear need demonstrated.

There’s an overwhelming hidden theme in all of these. Clear communication plays a large role in each of them. Let’s look at how communication relates to each of the 5 reasons people don’t donate.

1. With clear communication paper forms and websites should only ask the bare minimum. When programmed correctly, a website can display information about the user, by pre-filling the fields for them. The website can give an option to remember the donor’s information to pre-fill for the next time they want to donate. Or, when the person types in parts of their address, why couldn’t the website pull up the address like Google Maps does? Or, if the credit or debit card’s billing address is the same as the address to receive the donation, have the website populate both areas during entry. The idea is to streamline the process so the user only inputs the bare essentials to process the transaction.

2. Many times, past donations for the project are never mentioned so a new donor has no reference to the ministry’s track record. Questions like, ‘what have they done in the past with donations?’ are left unanswered. Providing clear information about past projects, missions, and so on, helps new donors understand a lot about the organization’s focus and what’s important to them. For the faithful donors they like to know how certain missions or projects turned out.

3. Losing the personal connection to the mission, typically points to lack of communication about the mission. If you ever heard the saying – ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’ then you probably can relate. Disseminating information to donors, using appropriate frequency based on the mission, is one way to ensure donors don’t lose interest with your cause.

Stay tuned for the second part of this 2 part series.

Improving Donations

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Envelope of 100 dollar bills being handed from one person to another.Improving donations in any organization is hard work. It’s even harder without a goal, strategy, and tactics. Each of these should be very specific. In other words, just setting a goal like ‘Improving Donations’ is not enough.

What are some examples of specific goals? 1.) We want to reach new donors. 2.) We want to change our good donors into generous donors. 3.) We want to educate each of our existing donors about our mission.

For each of these goals, wouldn’t the strategy and tactics vary? Absolutely! To reach new donors in the community, you may invite them to a dinner, whereas a Sunday morning informational meeting is in order, to educate your existing donors.

Once the goal is clearly defined, then the strategy to accomplish the goal is the next step. For people to give to a cause, they typically have to feel pretty strongly about it. Most people need an emotion for them to give money to a cause that they never had before. Retail and restaurant industries use different proven strategies for their industry to provoke an emotion, thus increasing revenue. For example, stores ensure certain aromas are in the air when you walk in. Or restaurants use certain foods like bacon, fresh-baked bread, or steak to make clients feel hungrier than they are. All of these strategies are used to increase –> revenue. In the case of churches, donations are their primary revenue stream.

Let’s use the goal “change good donors to generous donors” mentioned above and create a strategy. One strategy might be to pair good donors with available established generous donors, as their mentees. This creates an emotion for the good donors as they strive under their mentors’ wings. It helps with the emotional tie because the mentor is taking an interest in them and may even have some thing in common outside the church they both enjoy. Keep in mind the idea is not to just mentor them for donations. The mentor should be genuine and it’s the church’s responsibility to oversee this process.

The tactics are the actions that you take to implement the strategy to accomplish the goal. How would we match the good donors to the generous donors? You may start with looking at the donation data that you have in your church management software to find which donors are generous. Then, hold classes hosted by one or more affluent and influential donor(s) of the organization. The class could discuss different ways a good donor can make their dollar go further at home, so they have more to donate each month. This is a win-win for everyone. The donors learn more about financial stability and responsibility, the generous donors increase their financial knowledge as they work through different scenarios, and the church should see an increase in donations. Another possibility is the generous donors strike up a conversation with a small group in the church to discuss donations over dinner.

** I will stress that whatever the tactics, it’s important to respect the donor’s confidentiality according to the church’s bylaws about donations.

As stated earlier it’s hard work to increase donations. It’s vital to understand each donors’ situation on a personal level and make that connection with them. Not to sound too cliché’ — you need to connect to people’s hearts. It’s a long process but not one to take lightly in the new millennium. Donors today feel less of an obligation to give to organization than past generations. Today that personal connection is very important.

Helpful hints on how to Protect the Church’s Benevolence Ministry

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image resembling a person holding several paper money people interwined with each otherHelpful Hints to Protect the Benevolence Ministry

If you haven’t read the first part in this two part series please read it here first.

Do a little fact finding – A scenario may be a person asking the church to help them pay a bill like utilities, phone, or gas. It’s appropriate to call a company’s billing department and let them know who you are and your helping this person pay their bill. Majority of the time companies are more than happy to give the bill’s balance because they just want to get paid and they don’t care by who.

Once you know the bill’s balance, who should you give the money too? When possible, it is best for the church to pay the bill for the person instead of giving the benevolence seeker the cash. Is this an inconvenience for the church? Yes, however the church knows that it will go to where it is intended. This methods assures there’s is no mishandling of the money from the benevolence seeker is. This accountability is especially important when it is a large sum of money.

Developing ties with community businesses may be important to develop like gas stations and grocery stores. Why? If someone is passing through you can call ahead and advise the store to put the person’s purchase on the church’s tab (up to a certain limit). This process would keep you from making the trip to the store. Then you can pay the store over the phone or have a monthly bill sent to you. Some businesses will hold your debit card on file for purchases in the future. Keep in mind that cards expire and you may have to update it every so often with the business.

Documentation is a must when administering these funds for a Benevolence Ministry. You want to be held above reproach when it comes to documentation and those who are helped with the monies. This protects you from any type of questioning from others and builds a trust relationship.

Auditing is another strongly recommended suggestion. You should have a non-family person that reviews the records on an annual basis. The person should be someone that understand accounting, contributions, and various GAAP procedures and understands which compliant software to use for non-profits. Some example are a banker, CPA, investment firm, etc.

A Benevolence Ministry Committee or a group of confidants to bounce ideas off of is an added bonus. Sometimes the person in charge may need to ask the question – should we help this person? It’s always wise to seek council when needed. By having more eyes and ears on the case, it helps the person administering the money and keeps everything legit. Additionally, everyone has different backgrounds and they can chime in on the level of generosity.

image credit bobrusk

Church Membership Management and Benevolence Ministry

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image resembling a person holding several paper money people interwined with each otherWhat does church membership management and the Benevolence Ministry have in common? Let’s start with how the Benevolence Ministry gets it’s funding. Majority of the time this comes from the church’s members. It would be hard to fund this ministry without donors and the ability to track them in a church membership management system.

With a church membership management system, the church can track various pieces of information. Many times donors want to know how the donation is used when they are giving money to an organization. The church may want to report back to donors how the ministry is doing and how much it is helping others. Many church membership management systems also provide a tax receipt for their offering.

What about the people the church helps? Should they be in the church membership management system, although they may not be members? Answer – YES. Why? The church may invite them to social events that could help them not only spiritually but possibly get them back on their feet. The organization may want to give updates on the ministries. Churches often notify people about events of interest, like an upcoming job fair. It may be wise to know who you are helping and how often they are asking for help. This can help the ministry avoid people taking advantage of the Benevolence Ministry.

For donors, the organization can update them on how the ministry has helped others each month. Without a record of who’s helped, it’s hard to provide non-confidential information to the donors. In most organizations, statistics like number of people helped or how many shoes given away to needy children are acceptable to share. Many donors are encouraged when they hear about the number of people the ministry helped. Encouragement increases donations because the donors see progress towards a shared goal with the ministry. The organization’s internal reporting should show if the ministry is growing or shrinking in revenue and are controlling their expenses.

Helpful hints are coming in part two. Watch for it!

image credit bobrusk

Encouraging Consistent Giving

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Cars in trafficIf there’s one thing churches want to eliminate when it comes to receiving contributions, it’s the Summer Slump. It’s that time of year when folks are taking vacations, attending graduations and weddings or spending weekends at the lake. The change in routine all too often causes a disconnect in regular giving, even though the light bill, salaries and other typical monthly expenses incurred by the church still need to be paid. While tools such as automatic electronic fund transfers and online giving pages can help lessen the blow, maintaining contact with those who need a little extra encouragement in order to be consistent with their giving can be beneficial for both the church and the giver. In IconCMO, you can use Contribution Statements to identify and generate mailing labels for individuals who have not made a financial contribution during a certain period of time.

From the IconCMO menu, go to Contributions : Management : Cont-Statements.

The Contribution Statements window
Fig. 1 – The Contribution Statements window

Let’s take a look at a particular scenario. To do this, we’ll make a few assumptions:

  • All contributions that have come in so far for June and July have been posted.
  • Giving has been consistent and on-target from January through the end of May, but began to slump in June and continued to run behind in July as well.
  • We are primarily concerned with consistent giving on the part of our active members and active non-members.
  • We want to make contact with individuals who have not made a contribution in either June or July. We’d like to send out a letter in August to encourage them in their giving, so we’ll need to produce some mailing labels.The setup parameters should look similar to what is shown below.
The Contribution Statements setup screen.
Fig 2. – The Contribution Statements setup screen.

Several important parameters have been highlighted in yellow. Notice that the People Who Have option has been changed to Not Given, so that we only print labels for folks who have not given a gift. We have set a date range which covers June and July, specified that we want people with a Household Status of either Active or Active NonMbr, and set our Reporting Options choice to Labels (All) so we get mailing labels instead of statements. Setting the correct Label Type and clicking the Show Report button will generate output to a PDF document from which mailing labels can be printed.

It’s possible you may want to produce your letter by employing a mail-merge technique, as this will allow you to automatically insert first names in the salutation of the letter. You may also want to print the member’s address on the letter itself. To do this, go to Contributions : Management : Cont-Giving Reports and click on Pledges and Contributions with Contact Info to access the report.

The contribution giving reports menu and report options.
Fig. 3 – The Contribution Giving Reports Menu

This report can generate output for the same group of people we printed labels for from Contribution Statements. The setup for the report should look similar to what is shown below.

The setup parameters for the Pledges and Contributions with Contact Info report.
Fig. 4 – Setup parameters for the “Pledges and Contributions with Contact Info” report.

Notice we have set a Date Range which covers June and July, specified that we want people with a Status of either Active or Active NonMbr, set our Pledge Range so that it doesn’t matter whether they made a pledge or not, and set our Giving Range to zero so we only find those folks who have not made a contribution in either June or July. Additionally, our output will be in Excel Report format, so we can mail-merge the data. Clicking the Show Report button will generate output that looks similar to what is shown below.

Output from the Pledges and Contributions with Contact Info report shown in Excel format.
Fig. 5 – Output from the “Pledges and Contributions with Contact Info” report shown in Excel format.

You will notice that the Name column is not in the ideal format for a mail-merge letter. There are options in Excel that can be used to put first names in one column and last names in another. In this example, we’ll use some formulas to do this. In the next two screen shots, you’ll see that we’ve inserted two new columns, First Name and Last Name. By entering (and then replicating) a formula in these columns, we can separate the first names and last names for our mail merge. The formula for extracting the First Name from Column A into Column B is shown in Figure 6, while the formula for extracting the Last Name from Column A into Column C is shown in Figure 7. The result yields some name columns with a data format that is suitable for use in a mail-merge letter.

Excel spreadsheet showing Excel formula for extracting the first name from column A.
Fig. 6 – Excel formula for extracting the first name from column A.
Excel spreadsheet showing Excel formula for extracting the last name from column A.
Fig. 7 – Excel formula for extracting the last name from column A.

Now that you have the tools needed to reconnect with your lapsed givers, might this be a good time to write that letter?