Team Work Makes the Dream Work

Have you ever been stuck stuck building a report, setting up an import, or troubleshooting coding? After 10+ years in the non-profit sector as a fundraiser and consultant, I find this both the most frustrating and most rewarding factor in my career.

Recently, a search for an answer turned into a great collaboration with our fantastic vendor partner Red Arc! Red Arc is a Blackbaud Partner providing Raisers Edge NXT solutions, including the LetterBox plugin. LetterBox, a tool for creating thank-you letters and receipts, was developed to replace RE’s Microsoft Word mail integration. 
 
I was working with a client to help them set up Letter Box to process tax receipts. We created a variety of templates and documented the processes to generate them. While working on the consolidated receipting piece (called gift summary in LetterBox), I came across an issue with generating the correct tax receipt number. 
 
For our U.S. non-profits peers: In Canada, charities must meet strict tax receipt regulations. We use Receipt Stacks to manage multiple receipt number sequences, preventing duplicates. 
 
After going through the knowledgebase and testing, I decided to try my luck and reach out to Red Arc to see if there may be some solutions or new builds I may have missed. What followed was a fantastic conversation with Ryan Cooper from Red Arc and a possible fix to the existing receipt number issue in Gift Summary Receipt. Another conversation with Ryan and Joshua Guinness at Red Arc and they pulled through with a new code to resolve my issue in 48 hours!  

The takeaway? Don't hesitate to ask for help when stuck. You may end up knowing more than you think and may even provide some great insights to better the product and become collaborators.