Appeals

Introduction

NOTE: For basic information about using appeals in Little Green Light, please view these LGL videos:

As with campaigns and funds, each gift you enter into your LGL account can also be assigned to an appeal. In addition, you can build custom lists of constituents to send your appeal to. But before you can get started on that, your appeal needs to be created.

To view, edit, and add new appeals, navigate to Fundraising > Appeals. This will bring up a listing of all your appeals, and from here you can add new appeals, edit existing appeals, or delete any appeals that are no longer needed.

Adding new appeals

To add a new appeal, click on the Add appeal button.

Now you can fill out the New appeal fields and save the data. You can optionally assign an appeal to a campaign, in which case appeal assignments made during gift entry can be restricted by campaign. You can also assign an appeal type, which allows you to classify your appeals as solicitations, mailings, or surveys, for example. You can set up your appeal types by going to Settings > Menu items > Other menu items and adding them there.

The Code field in the screenshot above can be used to provide a unique short name, or code, for the appeal. An example might be if you have an appeal named "September 20XX Mailing" you might give it a code of "SEPXX". The code you create can be used in imports to match import data to the correct appeal.

NOTE: Using a code is optional.

The Returned letter count field in the screenshot above is a text-only field that is available to use as a way to track the number of returned envelopes for your appeal, if it was sent by mail.

After you save your appeal, it becomes available for use in gift entry and reporting on the Fundraising tab.

Appeal status

You can assign an appeal appeal status to constituents who have been added to an appeal. Or if they donated or pledged, LGL assigns that value automatically. To add or customize appeal statuses, navigate to Settings > Menu Items > Other menu items. Here are the default appeal status options and their definitions:

Open: The donor was asked to give but has not responded
Called: Someone from your organization called the donor to follow up on the written solicitation
Considering: The donor is thinking about giving
Declined: The donor indicated they will not give in response to this appeal

Editing and deleting appeals

Just like with campaigns and funds, appeals can be edited or deleted from the Appeals page by clicking on the Edit or Delete icons next to each appeal name. If you delete an appeal, it will be hidden from view entirely. It will remove the appeal coding from any gift records that have been added to that appeal. It will also remove the appeal record for any constituents who have been added to the appeal.

Inactive appeals

All appeals are active by default. You can make an appeal inactive by editing the appeal and deselecting the Is Active check box. Inactive appeals are still usable in gift querying and reporting, but will no longer appear when you are entering new gifts. Once an appeal's "Active" box is unchecked, you'll be able to access it from the Archived tab.

Cloning appeals

Once you've created an appeal, you have the ability to clone it and can choose to preserve the custom categories and attributes you've created, as well as any segment descriptions. To clone an appeal, click on the name of the appeal and choose the Clone button located in the top-right corner of the page.

Now you can name your new appeal—choosing to retain any custom attributes, categories, and appeal segments from the previous appeal that you want to keep—and save.

Merging appeals

Occasionally, you may want to merge two or more appeals together into one. To merge appeals, you can go to your Fundraising > Appeals page. From there, find the appeal you want to keep and click the Actions button. Then choose Merge gifts.

Note that this merges the gifts from one appeal into another but not any other appeal info; it won’t remove the merged appeal, since there might be data you need in there. But you can delete the merged appeal if you want to, by clicking Delete appeal from the Actions button menu.

Viewing your appeal data in sortable columns

You can choose to see the constituents in your appeal in a column view, which you can customize to show any appeal-related fields you want.

Customize the columns you can see here by clicking the Customize columns button. To sort the columns that are sortable, click the small arrow next to the column name.

Adding constituents to appeals in bulk

It is possible to add constituent appeal records in bulk by searching for the records you want to update in either the appeal or the Constituents tab and then selecting the Add/edit appeal option from the Bulk Updates dropdown menu, as shown here:

You can select to bulk add data to any field in the appeal record:

The final step is to review and save your changes by clicking on step 3, as shown in the above screenshots, and then clicking the Update records button in the image below to save the change:

Updating appeal status in bulk

You can bulk update appeal status for constituents in your appeal from within the appeal itself. First select the constituents whose appeal status you want to update, and then click Bulk edit > Update appeals, as shown here:

From here, select the appeal status you want to apply to these records and proceed through the next two steps to apply the change and save it: