Is there a best practice as to how to track a blended ask? I’m preparing to ask a donor for a significant gift to our new campaign as well as their normal annual fund gift. Is it better to enter this as a single opportunity or as two separate ones?
In my experience, there is no best practice here. While I sometimes encounter organizations that track them as a single opportunity, I prefer to track them separately—and there are a few reasons for that. In situations like yours, separate opportunities work best because the donor may answer yes to their usual annual fund gift and need some additional time to think over the campaign ask. I also prefer this because most systems allow only one designation on an opportunity or proposal, whereas most have the ability to split the designations when the gift comes in. I would check in with your database administrator in case they have a preference or your organization has a policy in place.
A follow-up question I often encounter when I give this advice is how I track the relationship management stage (sometimes referred to as prospect status) of the donor if there are two opportunities. I understand that it complicates things when you’re stewarding a donor for a recent gift while still cultivating them for a different gift. I recommend tracking the relationship management stage to the larger of the opportunities. Once again, be sure to check if your organization has an existing policy in place before moving forward. If they don’t, this is a great time to document one. Let me know if you have any follow-up or additional questions based on my answer, and thanks for the question!
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