As you look to send out final fundraising appeals this year, you may want to consider targeting existing donors to become sustaining supporters so their holiday generosity can continue into the New Year. To personalize those appeals, consider taking 5 minutes to follow this step-by-step, how-to recipe for creating a Next Recurring Ask Amount field in the Nonprofit Starter Pack. With it, you can get personal and specific based on a donor's giving history in those appeals!

Objective

Create a Next Recurring Ask Amount formula field on the Contact record in the Salesforce.org Nonprofit Success Pack for use in personalized sustaining donor fundraising appeals

Estimated Time

5 minutes

Requirements

• Salesforce.org Nonprofit Success Pack
• Use of the Donations (aka Opportunities) to track donations
• Rudimentary familiarity with creating custom fields and editing page layouts in Salesforce

Desired Outcomes

• Facilitate the use of a personalized recurring donation ask amount when sending sustaining donor fundraising appeals to a Contact

The End Result

At the conclusion of our process, we'll have one formula field on the Contact object called Next Recurring Ask Amount that divides Total Gifts Last Year by 10 and rounds up to the nearest whole number. Using this value in personalized fundraising appeals, you can encourage donors to become monthly sustaining supporters at a annualized rate that is slightly higher than their total gifts last year. As the source of this idea, we humbly tip our hat to @Marina Shuman as she uses this approach in appeals that support the Banfield Foundation's efforts to serve pets and the people who love them by ensuring access to veterinary care.

Step One: Create the Next Recurring Ask Amount field Contact object

We'll create a formula field on the Contact in this recipe. If you wish, you can follow the same steps to do so on the Account/Household.

To create this field in Salesforce Classic:

• Go to Setup
• In the left column, click Customize
• Click Contacts
• Click Fields
• In the Contact Custom Fields & Relationships section, click New
• For each step in the process, use the values in the Contact Object Custom Field section below to create the field

To create this field in Salesforce Lightning:

• Go to Setup
• Enter "Object" in the Quick Find box in left column
• Select Object Manager under the Objects and Fields menu
• Scroll down the list and click Contacts
• Click Fields
• In the Contact Custom Fields & Relationships section, click New
• In the Fields & Relationship section, click New
• For each step in the process, use the values in the Contact Object Custom Field section below to create the field

As the finishing touch for the Contact object, edit your Contact Page Layout to add the Next Recurring Ask Amount field. You may wish to place it under the Next Ask Amount field, if you created it following our how-to recipe. Or, if you followed our tips for extending the Nonprofit Success Pack to convert one-time donors to sustaining supporters donors, you could put it in the Recurring Donation Information section.

Contact Object Custom Fields

Field Label: Next Recurring Ask Amount

API Name: Next_Recurring_Ask_Amount

Data Type: Formula (Currency)

Formula: CEILING ( npo02__OppAmountLastYear__c / 10 )

Step Two: Celebrate!

You're all done!