The following steps describe how to go about generating a stewardship report package in Impact. See Terminology at the end of the article for terms you may not yet know.
Template Configuration
The organization chooses a template to configure as part of their Impact implementation. The configuration includes:
- Choice of financial report format and mapping of Fundriver activity/transactions to the Impact financial report
- Awardee type setup
- Choice of Impact narrative formats by awardee type
- Name of report template
Personalizing a Template
Once a template is created, the user provides content to populate it with through the Impact user interface. Personalizing of the template includes:
- Upload of images needed for the report pages chosen
- Upload of written content for all pages chosen for display (i.e. cover letter, Endowment Overview, glossary)
- Upload of statistics and labels for graphic pages
- Choice of color schematics
- Choice of font
- Upload of logos and other organization imagery/branding
- Awardee data is uploaded using an Excel flat file import or loaded in the Awardee section of the Impact user interface
Once the template set up is finalized, the user can commit the template and it is ready to run for a group of Constituents or Funds.
Workflow: Generating a Report Package
Building a report package starts in the Reports section. Report packages can be built incrementally and saved, so that you can continue working on building your package at any time. Below are step by step instructions.
Step 1- Select Criteria
1. In Impact, navigate to Reports on the left menu, then click the Create new reports button on the upper right.
2. Type in a name for the report package in the Report label box.
3. Choose the Date range for the package to run. The dates chosen will determine:
- Which date range is used for the financial report
- Which Awardee data (i.e. Impact narratives) will be included in the report package
4. Choose the Template you want applied to the report package by clicking Select Template. A new page will appear showing all templates that have been marked as Approved. Select the one you want to use, and you will be taken back to the previous page.
5. Select the Data source. Data Source is where you will choose Funds and Constituents to build the report package. Choosing either "Select data from funds" or "Select data from constituents" will get you to the same place eventually, because all reports are created for constituents. In other words, if you choose funds as your data source, you will later be asked which constituents you want to include. Likewise, if you choose constituents as your data source, you will choose constituents, then you will be asked which funds you want to include on their reports.
If you chose "Select data from constituents," a new page will appear where you can select one, multiple or all constituents. The Search by keyword box allows you to search on and of the columns shown. In the example below you would be able to search by Constituent Name or ID, Fund Count, Primary Solicitor, and Last Report Date.
If you chose "Select data from funds," a new page will appear where you can select one, multiple or all funds. The Search by keyword box allows you to search on and of the columns shown. In the example below you would be able to search by Fund Name or ID, Net Asset Classification, Purpose/Use or Department.
6. Click Continue.
Throughout the selection process, the list of funds and/or constituents you have chosen for the report run is shown on the right side of the screen, in the Selected Constituents list.7. Depending on which data source you selected in step 5, you will now select from a narrowed down list of either funds or constituents, based on what you chose in step 5. You may search in this group as you did on the previous page, and select as desired.
8. Once Constituent and Fund Selections are made, click Continue, and you can review your selections. Navigate back to make changes to Fund or Constituents that are included. When ready, select Apply data source. You have completed the Select Criteria process.
Step 2- Generate Drafts
Before finalizing the package, you will generate draft PDFs for review, either as a full batch (all records selected) or individually. Note: Do not select more than about 400 funds or constituents to run at one time. If you have more to run, create them in separate batches.
Here you have the option to change the report package label and date range if desired.This page provides a summary of the template selected as well as Constituents and Funds selected. When ready select Generate drafts.
Step 3- Approve Drafts
In the previous step, the system merged your report template, financial data from Fundriver, Constituent information from Raiser's Edge NXT or your constituent import, and Awardee data from your import file. Once reports are reviewed and needed changes are made, drafts are approved and final high resolution PDFs are created by selecting Approve draft.
Step 4- Download Reports
Once you click Approve, a "Download all reports" button will appear. Use this to download all repots in one zip file. Alternatively, you can download each report separately by clicking on its link in the Download column. Please note, at this time we do not have an automated way to copy the reports into your donor management system/CRM.
Step 5- Create a Report Delivery (Optional)
To learn more about creating report deliveries, see this article: Report Delivery Options
Your data and content is stored in tables in the Fundriver Impact database. Your branded Impact template is stored on a server and we use a proprietary process to pull your fund data, connect it with the donor and impact information the fund is mapped to, and merge all general and fund-specific content from Fundriver, your CRM, and Fundriver Impact into the report shell. This process is kicked off by clicking the 'Generate Reports' or 'Generate Drafts' button in Fundriver Impact.Terminology
Approve Draft: By approving a draft report/reports, you are telling the program to generate a high resolution version of the report for final distribution. Approving drafts should only happen after all review is complete.
Awardee: The individual, program or department that was a recipient of philanthropic dollars and provides stewardship impact information.
Content: Report content is text, narrative or image that is consistent across all reports produced in a package and is not personalized to the donor. An example might be the glossary definitions, statistic, or a letter from leadership.
Data: Report data is text, numbers, or images that is being pulled from its respective system of record and will be different for each report. And example of data are the fund-specific financials, awardee narratives, or student photos.
Draft Report: A draft report is a low resolution PDF that can be printed or emailed for review prior to finalization of the report package. Where you make changes to draft report information depends on the system of record. Fund information will need to be modified in Fundriver, donor information will need to be updated in the CRM, and Awardee data can be modified in the Impact interface. All content and images will be available to edit in the Impact interface.
Report Package: A PDF file containing all of the stewardship reports for a selected group of constituents and funds.
Template: A professionally designed Adobe InDesign file provided by Fundriver, into which a user's branding, content, and data is pulled. Much like a mail merge, different information flows through each report while the overall look and feel remains the same.