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Configuring Pledges for Moves Management: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1861019
So you're using moves management to track your prospecting, appeals, and stewardship for major gifts. That's fantastic! When it's time for the cultivation phase (when you're preparing to ask the prospect for a gift, and then tracking that ask through to completion), you'll use Pledges to house all the activities related to that ask.
Before you begin, you'll need to first make sure Pledges are enabled in your PatronManager account (and if not, enable them). Then you'll make some minor adjustments to customize Pledges to fit your moves management process. Since every organization varies, this is how you'll customize the system to meet your specific needs.
This should take you 1-2 hours, and you'll only have to do it once. Ready? Let's dive in!
Confirm that Pledges are enabled
We've got a whole article about this! Head over here and follow through the steps to check whether Pledges are already set up in your account, and if not, enable this feature.
When you're finished, come back here to complete your moves management configuration.
Configure Pledges for Moves Management
There's just one required step to complete, so let's get started!
Add Stages
By default, Pledges only have three Stages - Pledged, Partially Paid, and Paid in Full. to support your moves management cultivation process, you'll need more! Click below to expand the steps.
1. Head to Setup
2. Search for and click on Sales Processes
3. Click into Pledges
Be sure to click on Pledges, not Pledge Payments.
4. Select additional options, then save
Move "Closed Lost" over to the right, plus a few preparatory stages of your choosing (see recommendations below). Then save!
We suggest aiming for around 3-5 cultivation steps, before a gift reaches "Pledged."
Q: Which options should I choose?
A: It's really up to you. Each Stage can have specific guidance (like outreach activities) associated with it, can be used as a filter or grouping in reports, and the varying probabilities can help you later with forecasting. Refer back to your moves management strategy planning to see what cultivation steps you have in mind, and add a simple set of Stages that fit your process.
Here's a common set of options:
- Prospecting: you're investigating whether this donor would be a good fit for a major gift
- Cultivation: you're building a relationship with this donor in preparation for your ask
- Solicitation: you're planning how you will ask this donor to give
- Ask - Under Review: you've made the ask and the donor is considering it or negotiating the amount, timeline, etc.
- Pledged: your donor has confirmed that they will give this major gift, but hasn't paid it yet
- Partially Paid: your donor has started paying (Pledge Payments), but has not yet paid the full pledged amount
- Fully Paid: the gift has been paid in full
- Closed Lost: this major gift will not be moving forward (e.g. the donor declined to give)
Do not add the "Pending" Stage - this only for recurring credit card donations, and will cause errors in other contexts.
Q: can I change the Probability and other values for a given Stage?
A: in general, no, you should not edit Stages. Making changes to these values (name, probability %, status) can have unanticipated side effects, especially in reports, and can be difficult to fix later. We recommend leaving the Stages as-is.
One exception: if you wish to edit the probability % of your cultivation Stages (any stage that is more than 0% and less than 90%), you may. Be sure to consider your changes in relation to all Stage values, and never set a probability of 0% or 90%+ when making your changes, as these probability ranges have specific meaning for PatronManager.
You're done with Stages!
Next you can consider the optional steps below to make your moves management process more robust, and when you're ready, move on to identifying your prospects, cultivating relationships, and tracking those gifts!
Optional: set up Path for Pledges
Salesforce has a cool feature you can use to help implement your moves management plan in PatronManager: Path!
Path allows you to associate specific guidance and tips with each stage of a gift as it progresses through the pipeline, from as early as the prospecting stage all the way to the final payment. This can help you put consistent strategic moves in place to guide a gift through to completion, and will remind your team what they should do during each cultivation stage.
You can even give users a fun little burst of confetti when they complete a successful appeal!
Optional: set up automation and/or scheduled reports
In addition to Path, your admin could also build custom automation with Flow for reminders, and set up scheduled reports to receive updates listing Pledges by Stage!
You can learn more about Flow here. Make sure to carefully follow our testing guidelines, since powerful tools like Flow can break PatronManager if used incorrectly.