Welcome to Module 3! A successful implementation of FastFund Raising relies heavily on careful planning. Before you enter a single donor or post a donation, you must establish a solid foundation.
The setup of your FastFund Raising data is comprised of five essential data sets. These sets will help you organize your company information, control who accesses the system, categorize your donor database, manage your fundraising campaigns, and prepare your data for seamless integration with your accounting system.
In this lesson, we will cover the core principles of configuring FastFund Raising and the critical questions you must answer before building your database.
1. The Five Essential Data Sets
To ensure proper maintenance of your constituent lists and fundraising activities, your setup will focus on these five key areas:
- Company Information: This establishes your organization’s demographic data, fiscal year, account number format, and data entry preferences. (Note: If FastFund Raising is integrated with FastFund Accounting, the setup of your company data is controlled from the fiscal office and automatically carries over to the fundraising system).
- Authorized Users: This defines user groups, group rights, and the specific individuals authorized to access and perform actions within the FastFund application.
- Code Tables: Codes are the tags that classify your database. This data set includes attributes, membership types, alumni data, roles, relationships, and the specific acknowledgment letters you send.
- Accounts: This links your fundraising efforts to your general ledger. It includes defining cash accounts, pledge receivables, in-kind transfer accounts, and specific revenue and expense accounts.
- Funds, Campaigns, Appeals & Gifts: This forms your “Gift Pyramid.” It allows you to organize cash deposits, segregate revenue, track appeal expenses, and measure the effectiveness of your specific fundraising events and drives.
[INSERT SCREENSHOT: Display the FastFund Administration and Lists menus, highlighting where Company Setup, User Management, Codes, Chart of Accounts, and Campaign Management are accessed.]
2. The Planning Phase: Questions to Ask Before Setup
It will be much easier to set up your data if you first outline your goals and objectives. The information you put into FastFund is only useful if you can easily find it, print meaningful reports from it, and measure results against it.
Before configuring the system, sit down with your development and accounting teams and answer the following questions to map out your strategy:
To define Company Information and Users:
- What is your organization’s exact legal address, contact information, and Federal ID number?
- What is your organization’s fiscal year?
- What is the exact format of your accounting system’s account numbers?
- Who in your organization is authorized to use the FastFund software, and what permissions should they have?
To define Code Tables (Constituent Tracking):
- How do you classify your donors and prospects?
- Are you a membership or alumni organization?
- What specific attributes (e.g., hobbies, interests, major donors) do you want to assign to constituents?
- What types of acknowledgment letters do you send?
- What activities or actions do you want to track for your donors (e.g., phone calls, meetings)?
To define Accounts and Campaign Management:
- What general ledger account numbers do you need to track cash receipts?
- Will you track pledges and in-kind donations?
- Do you segregate your fundraising revenue into separate net asset funds?
- Do you organize broad fundraising campaigns?
- Do you have specific, planned fundraising events and appeals?
- Do you track expenses for your appeals?
Ultimately, your goal is to raise more money by working smarter. Taking your time to plan these five data sets correctly the first time will give you the reporting and analytical tools you need to achieve that goal.