Development Classifications

Overview

Development classifications are attributes that apply to Giving History records and Gift records.  Development classifications are automatically created based on many different types of data within the system.  Development classifications are primarily used to support development roles and summary reports.

Classification Categories

Development Classifications are organized by classification type, which in turn are organized by classification category.  Classifications are created based on various data stored within the system. In order for classifications to be created for giving history records, the campaign must have start and end dates specified.

Roles

Parent and Grandparent classifications are always based on enrollment history of the child/grandchild. If a household has a parent or grandparent relationship to someone enrolled for the given year, the parent and grandparent classifications will be added to the household giving history for the campaign in that year.

Alumni classifications are always based on the graduation year.

All other role classifications (Board, Former Board, Staff, Faculty, Coach, Volunteer, etc.) are created based on person classifications and the start/end dates on those classifications. Person classifications will automatically be created for a person based on their person roles, but the dates should be managed by the school in order to ensure the proper roles are applied to the proper campaign giving history records. Development Classifications are refreshed automatically on a weekly basis, however, users may do this process manually by running the “Refresh Person Classification” action menu item from the Development homepage.

It is very important to make sure start/end dates are accurate on person records for the Board, Faculty and Staff roles so the classifications are populated correctly to giving history. Staff/Faculty classification begin/end dates will be populated automatically if hire/termination dates are entered on the person record. Board dates will have to be managed manually.

Development Roles

Based on the Development Roles as defined by the school.

Alumni

Driven by the Alumni and Former Student roles and split into groups of Alumni only and Alumni plus Former Students. Classifications break out alumni by graduation year, reunion year, geographic location and programs involved in when attending the school.

The program classifications are based on historical enrollments in Other Program and Athletic Program classes in Veracross. These classifications are for all-time so are not year specific.

Parents

Driven by the Parent role and their relationships to students, split into groups by School Level, Grade Level, Class Year, Homeroom, and Student Group. The Parent classifications are based on the enrollment history on the related student. Use the Youngest/Oldest classifications to create reports that do not double count households who have children in multiple school/grade levels. Use the New Parent classifications to break out families who are new to the school.

Parents of Alumni

Driven by the enrollment history on the related student and split into groups by child graduation year.

Grandparents

Driven by the Grandparent role and their relationships to students, split into groups by School Level, Grade Level, Class Year, Homeroom, and Student Group. The Grandparent classifications are driven completely by the enrollment history on the related student. Use the Youngest/Oldest classifications to create reports that do not double count households who have grandchildren in multiple school/grade levels. Use the New Grandparent classification to split out families who are new to the school.

Grandparents of Alumni

Driven by the enrollment history on the related student and split into groups by grandchild graduation year.

Faculty & Staff

Driven by the Faculty and Staff role classifications and start/end dates and are split into groups by School Level, Department, Faculty Type. Use the New Faculty/Staff classification to split out staff and faculty who are new to the school in the current year.

Solicitation Groups

Driven by the solicitation group assigned on the giving history record and split into groups by solicitation group type and solicitation group.

Giving

Driven by donor giving to the given campaign as well as prior campaign giving. See below for details on the different classification categories.

• Giving Level – driven by the giving category assigned on the giving history record.
• LY Giving Category – driven by the giving category assigned on the giving history record for last year’s AF campaign.
• Giving – driven by the attributes assigned on the giving history record.
• Consecutive AF Giving – driven by any gifts (donations, pledges, soft credits) that exist for the donor in consecutive Annual Fund campaigns over prior years.
• Gave in Last X Years – driven by any gifts (donations, pledges, soft credits) that exist for the donor in prior campaigns (any/all campaigns).
• Gave to AF in Last X Years – driven by any gifts (donations, pledges, soft credits) that exist for the donor in prior Annual Fund campaigns.
• Communication Status – driven by the communication status on the giving history record.

School Defined

Schools can create their own classifications to categorize donors for reporting purposes. In order to create school specific development classifications, person classification types and person classifications can be created and then added to the proper person records. On the person classification type, be sure to check off the “Propagate to Giving History” field in order to have those automatically populated to the giving history records. Also be sure to set start/end dates on the person classifications so the system knows which campaign giving history records to create the classification for.

Using Development Classifications

Summary Reports

One of the main purposes of development classifications is to create summary reports. Click here to learn more about how to create summary reports using development classifications.

Gifts

Every gift inherits the classifications from the Annual Fund giving history record for the fiscal year that the gift is associated with (i.e. gifts to AF campaigns and non-AF campaigns will both inherit the classifications from the AF giving history record for the given FY). This allows schools to run gift summary reports based on development classifications. Use the “Development Classification” field in a Find Gifts query to look for gifts with specific classifications.

For example, a Find Gifts query can be run for a given period of time and grouped by the development role (primary) classification in order to see gifts given by primary role in a given time period.

People & Households

Every person and household can be searched for by their active campaign classifications by using the “Development Classification” field in a Find People or Find Household query.

Refresh

The Refresh Campaign Data procedure refreshes all development classifications on giving history records as well as on gift records for the given campaign.