Managing the Portfolios
Prospect Managers and roles vary from institution to institution. Some focus on the personal touches that they are so good at, others like their database of donor information to keep them on track and up-to-date. But whatever their style and comfort with technology, building and maintaining relationships is key to their success, and the information available to them in Blackbaud CRM™ is aimed specifically at doing that. Accessing their portfolio needs to be quick and seamless, and the information contained within needs to be current and concise.
To this end, their portfolio can be accessed from a number of locations within Blackbaud CRM™. One option is for the fundraiser to open up their own constituent record, and then click on their Fundraiser tab. Another quicker option (as long as the fundraiser’s Application User is linked to his/her constituent record) is to click on the My Fundraiser Page link from the Prospects Functional area. Either of these work for the fundraiser, but their support staff have on the whole been using the first option since they are not the fundraiser and do not therefore have the relevant My Fundraiser page. Opening their fundraisers constituent record takes a few clicks more, but it’s made easier with the use of shortcuts, and ultimately don’t they end up in the same place? Aren’t they the same thing, the Fundraiser tab and the My Fundraising page? Well, out of the box they contain the same data; but it needn’t be that way. The choice is yours.
Some organizations deliberately keep the Fundraiser tab and the My Fundraiser page an identical copy of each other; that way everyone has access to the same information, and it doesn’t matter how you choose to get there. Others will design the My Fundraiser page as a customized (perhaps slimmed down) version of the fundraiser tab.
To customize or not to customize
When considering how to best use the fundraiser page, there are a few questions to ask yourself:
Do I want to customize the space, or does everything meet my needs?
Do I want my fundraisers to see everything that their fundraising support staff see, or is there need for some shared knowledge, but ultimately the goal is to streamline the view that the fundraiser sees?
The keep it clean approach
Keep it clean – get rid of the unnecessary – streamline! As we mentioned in our blog Eliminate the Clicks and Clutter, “if it’s harder to find or access the basic information users rely on hourly, frustration rises”. Page Designer, a powerful component of Blackbaud CRM™, provides system administrators the ability to customize the look and feel of the system through configuration. Hide tabs from the fundraiser that you don’t need them to see; and create new data-lists or list-builders with data that is more valuable to them.
Access for all
So, what happens if you decide to customize one or both of the areas so that they now contain different information? Can fundraising support staff access their fundraisers My Fundraiser page if they need to? The answer is yes. Take a look at the Prospect Status tile in one of your prospects records. This is the tile which summarizes information for major giving prospects; among other things it contains a link to the Prospect manager. Click this link and that prospect manager’s My Fundraiser page will open.
Support staff can then shortcut that page to their explorer bar for future use.
If your fundraisers have wish-lists of data they would like to access, consider customizing their space for them. If you have questions or would like help creating new data-lists or list-builders, please let us know. We’re here to help.