Goal & Use

This page enables targeted communications with donors and, as a bonus, exports data from MinistryPlatform for further analysis.

• The information included is specifically to help with the most targeted communication.
• Online Giving is carved out so you can tell if donors are giving in that manner yet.
• Giving is organized to the household so you can avoid making appeals to people to "begin giving online" who already do.
• Similarly, soft credit is included, as we do not want to make appeals to "begin giving online" to people who give through a third party that gives online.
• You can use fields like member status, participant type, first household donation, last household donation, and more to create the right list of donors with whom you want to have a detailed conversation about giving.
• As a bonus, this information can shed light into how giving is changing at a household level from this calendar year compared to the last and from before services were canceled and since.

You can:

• See how donors gave year-to-date this year and last year, including the variance.
• See how donors gave year-to-date this year and last year, specifically for online gifts.
• See how donors gave in the time frame prior to and after a specific date.
• Run basic reports.
• Send emails to the head of household.
• Use basic tools such as the Transfer Selection tool and Contact Log to help start communication with sub-sets of donors.
• See all donations associated with the household on the Donations tab.

Suggested Use:

Each church can use the Giving Unit Summary page however they see fit. Here are some tips to get you started:

• Reach out to donors who have not yet donated online.
  • Use a Planned Contact or the Selected Call List report to connect with them by phone call.
  • Mail pre-addressed envelopes to donors who have not yet given online and may be hesitant to do so.
  • Mail a letter or postcard with instructions on how to give online since many of these check and cash only donors may not have an email address in your system to reach another way.
• Reach out to new online donors.
  • Send them a "thank you" text, email, or postcard or note.
  • Include a story of how your church is reaching its community and fulfilling its mission in this time.
• Reach out to donors who haven't given since the comparison date.
  • Give them a phone call to check in and pray with them; they may be struggling financially.
  • Send them a text, email, or postcard or note letting them know you are praying for them.

Eligibility

For a giving unit to be eligible to have a Giving Unit Summary record, they must have:

• At least one household member with a Donor record.
• At least one gift (donation distribution) in a finalized batch dated in the current or prior year credited to that donor.
  Important: Because the Giving Unit Summary is keying off of households, donors without a household do not have their donations included in this data set.

Soft Credit

Soft credit donations are included on the Soft Credit Donor's summary record and are not included in the original donor's summary record. For example, if Joe gave through his Joe's Junkyard business account with Joe as the soft credit donor, Joe's Junkyard will not have a summary and all donations from that business account will be accounted for in Joe's summary record.

The donor whose statement would display that donation will only have a summary record if they have other donations where soft credit was not applied.

Customization

You can customize the Giving Unit Summary page for you church based on configuration settings and payment types.

Communications

Communicating from the Giving Unit Summary page is similar to other MinistryPlatform pages. The contact in scope is the first household member. When you identify both heads of household are identified and their genders, this is the male head of household. Otherwise it is:

• If you identify both heads of household but only know one gender, the known gender is first household member.
• If you know both genders but only identified one as head of household, the head of household is first household member.
• If you don't identify either head of household and don't know either genders, the lowest contact ID is first household member.

Professional Services

It's up to you if there are other ways you want to use this tool. However, if you need us to provide any assistance, it will be a Professional Service. We accept requests to make this better, but they must fit within the primary goal of the page.

Professional Services can also help reconcile this data set against other reports and outputs and researching anomalies with this data set.

Other Important Data Points

To consider other key data points in conjunction with the Giving Unit Summary, see:

• Donor Tracking
• Participant Tracking
• Contact Tracking