Using fundraising goals for major gifts or grants

In this article:

What is a fundraising goal?

A fundraising goal represents a grant or major gift contribution that you want to pursue. Adding a goal can improve your planning process by allowing you to plan a course of actions and set up a calendar of tasks or actions to be performed to manage the grant or stewardship process to achieve the goal.

Add a fundraising goal

To add a goal, click on the Add goal button on the Dashboard, Fundraising tab, or from the Goal Information section of a constituent details page.

On the Goal page, set the constituent (if this has not already been set), the goal name, the ask amount, and date. Additionally, you can set goal categories, high and low projections for the goal based on information known about the constituent, and related information such as the campaign, fund, appeal and event the goal is associated with, and notes. Finally, you can add related tasks and assign owners and due dates for those, which is useful for planning and tracking the required activity for achieving the goal.

Moves management

You can use the Status field to indicate progress toward the goal. Define your own statuses or edit existing statuses by navigating to Settings > Menu items > Gift menu items and locating the list of values under Goal status. Use the Add values button to create a new value. Some goal statuses can be edited by selecting the Edit button on the value name. If there is no Edit field available, this means the value is a default system value that cannot be edited, updated, or removed due to specific meanings or behaviors within the goal functionality.

NOTE: Goals can also be used for grant proposals. Just set the constituent to the foundation or other granting organization.

Working with default goal status versus custom goal status

By default, goal status is set to automatically update the system-defined goal statuses based on gift entry against the goal. While it is possible to edit the goal to update your own custom goal statuses in some instances, they will automatically be updated and uneditable when gift records are entered against the goal.

The system will not allow custom goal status values to be applied and edited at all stages of the goal unless a setting is enabled in your account. If you’d like that setting to be enabled, please request this from the Help page in your account. Once the setting is enabled, you will have the ability to choose a custom status value for a goal at all stages. The caveat to keep in mind is that goal status will no longer change automatically when a gift is entered against the goal. Anytime a goal status needs to be updated going forward, this will need to be completed manually.

You can search for and export goals using filters and Advanced Search criteria from the Fundraising > Goals page.

You can also report on goals in a constituent report, choosing the "Goals" or "Goal list" columns to view your goal data on a by-constituent basis.