To use the Opportunities feature effectively you will need to define Opportunity Types for each kind of fundraising process you do. Opportunity Types describe the workflow associated with that type of fundraising.

Opportunity Types would typically include:

• Major Gift Ask
• Application for a Grant
• Corporate Sponsorship
• Legacy Case Management
• Volunteer Application Process

And so on. There is no limit to the number of Opportunity Types that you can define and use.

Opportunity Types allow you define the stages - ie the workflow steps that you would naturally take when fundraising.

To mange your Opportunity Types, go to Opportunities | Settings | Opportunity Types (only available to Admins).

• Active - means the Opportunity type can be used. Non-active Opportunity Types cannot be used in the filter.
• Financial Opportunity type - when ticked it means that Opportunities of this type will prompt for a monetary amount and a Fund. The amounts will be used when displaying pipeline charts. Non-financial opportunity types are for tracking processes that don't result in a financial transaction - for example, volunteer applications.
• Stages - You can design your opportunity type so that it has the appropriate workflow stages. You can add stages, remove stages, re-sequence stages, and edit stages.
  You will need at least one Stage defined for the Opportunity Type to work.
  
  The properties of a stage are:
  
  • • Stage name - the name of the stage
    • Updates Outcome - this means that when an opportunity of this type reaches this stage it sets the outcome to either positive, negative or neutral. This is because you might want different stage names to represent say a positive outcome dependent on the opportunity type. For example - a positive outcome for a Grant Application could be called Successful, whereas, for corporate sponsorship, it might be "Win". Making those stages positive outcomes makes it easier to report on outcomes across all opportunity types.
    • Default forecast (%) - an opportunity's forecast will be set to this percentage when it reaches this stage (it can be overridden manually on the opportunity if required).
    • Max days in stage - Donorfy monitors how long an opportunity has been in its current stage, and highlights those opportunities that are approaching or overdue to be moved on to the next stage, according to the max days.
    • Tasks - you can define the tasks that will be automatically generated once an opportunity of this type reaches this stage. For each task you can set the Task Description, the person to whom the task is assigned (either the fundraiser or a nominated user), whether the due date relates to the original opportunity date or the date on which the opportunity has reached this stage; and the number of days following that date.

Once you've created your stages you're ready to go. You can test them by creating an opportunity, advancing it through the stages, checking that tasks have been created etc. You can delete your test opportunities via the Manage menu on the opportunity form.

Deleting a Stage

Stages can be deleted by clicking on the red X to the right of the stage. When a Stage is deleted, all Opportunities that featured that Stage for that Opportunity Type will become stageless. It will no longer be displayed on the Kanban or a Current Stage present in Lists.
 
When you open the Opportunity, the stage will display as Gauging Interest as that is the first option in the drop-down list. (There is no blank option for it to display so can only show the first option in the drop-down list).
 
The stage is not set until that Opportunity has been Saved, at which point it will be added back to the Kanban board and the Current Stage will be viewable in an Opportunity List.

NOTE: Donorfy automatically creates a stage called Done. The stage of Done is there to help manage the Kanban view on the board. Where there are a lot of Opportunities within the various stages that are effectively closed/done, they will still display within the stage that they are at until manually moved to the Done stage.
 
The Time in Stage setting will help to identify those that have been in a stage for the longest amount of time, and therefore would be the better ones to 'drag and drop' over to the Done column. It's a way to help see the wood from the trees when viewing the board. 

Opportunities is a Professional-only feature. Essential subscribers, please contact us to find out more about upgrading.