Allow Fundraisers to be the Fundraiser on their own giving in RE Webview
Re database view has always allowed us to mark fundraisers (solicitors) as the fundraiser on their own gifts. I discovered recently that this causes an error in RE webview saying that a donor cannot be a fundraiser for their own gift. I do not understand why the developers have chosen to remove this functionality in webview. This has always been possible in database view.
We use this incredibly strategically in our system. This is how we track give/get goals for our Foundation Board and this has been our practice for over a decade. Our Board members are all marked as fundraisers in RE with a goal of $5000. They can reach this goal either by giving that much themselves (as the donor) or by bringing it in through connections. Marking them as the fundraiser on all gifts they bring in (their own and from others) allows us to accurately track their give/get and make use of the standard reports that track fundraiser performance and progress towards goal. It also simplifies our general reporting and makes it easy to see at a glance what giving was generated by our Board. It's an elegant use of the solution.
This feature in database view isn't a problem and it is incredibly useful in simplifying reporting and process. The decision to suddenly make this impossible in webview will cause my organization a ton on issues and I don't see any material gain from it. If the concern was that users were marking donors as solicitors in error, I assure you that this is not the case for us and I am sure we are not the only ones using fundraiser credits in this way. If that truly was the reasoning behind blocking us from marking donors as the fundraiser on their own gifts, I suggest adjusting this to a pop-up error message asking if we're sure that's what we want to do. That way, there'd be a check on the process, but users who do this purposefully can still continue with their process.
If this is not addressed before the move to the unified view, this will cause a huge problem with our entry practices and will make it even more difficult to retain reporting integrity and to pull historic reports - since this would mean suddenly changing entry practices that have been stable in the 15 or so years that our organization has been using RE.
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Maya Rosman
- Jun 11 2025
- Planned
Related ideas
The practice of crediting solicitors for their own gifts has been in place since my organization began using Raiser's Edge over 25 years ago. Blackbaud needs to remove the hard code in web view that prevents this practice from continuing----or create business rules that we can set that allows for it or not. Why do you deem to direct your clients in running their business how they see fit? It makes no sense for us to try to come up with workarounds or to have to manually enter the credit in the query output from gift reports prior to reporting out to our teams. We pay too much for Blackbaud products to be stuck with a manual fix that can easily be overlooked across staff. Please fix this issue at your earliest convenience.
Hooray for PLANNED status!
vital for Board give/get reports. If you don't do this idea you need to please advise us how we CAN include personal giving in a board give/get
This has to be changed. We have all of our parishes as solicitors in our system. We have many parishes that send us one parish check(s), that are gifts they collected on behalf of their parishioners. Sometimes they contain anonymous donors, so we put the gift amount on the parish record so they still get credit. All of our goals and totals are based on solicitor (that is how we report on the appeal). We have to be able to put a gift on the parish record, and credit the parish with the gift. We cannot re-write the entire way we track gifts and accounting and everything. This can be done in DBV with NO ISSUE.
This is important functionality for tracking Board give/get totals.
This is the easy answer to pulling reports and data on fundraiser dollars. They are absolutely their own fundraisers. Please change this, Blackbaud.
I really like this solution for give/get reporting. I hope you bring it to webview.
this function is essential for the GIve/Get report - if you remove this please address how users can create a give/get report that includes board members' own gifts
Raiser's Edge has never included a "give/get" report, which is a pretty common need in nonprofit organizations. Probably the best way to accomplish this is with the solicitor performance analysis, though that also has some challenges.
The inability to assign someone as their own fundraiser removes the only way to easily report board give/get totals. Adding this functionality would fit squarely into the "Manage and act on your data" swim lane that has been part of so many PUBs.
Please stop forcing your customers into workarounds.
This our standard practice too - to link a fundraiser to a gift even if they gave it themselves. This would make reporting more difficult to not have this functionality.
There are several cases that a fundraiser needs to be linked to a gift on their own record. While this doesn't impact us often, it is a functionality we have used in the past. I also think that @Maya's use case is a very clever way to track trustee give/get donations.
This is standard practice and we should be able to link ANY gift to ANY fundraiser regardless of who gave the gift. Even if it was "self-given" they should get credit for it. Many fundraisers/solicitors self solicit their own gift.
Organizations should have the option to do this, as it is standard practice for many.