Manage Donor information in FOLIO

Owned by Joseph Reimers
Last updated: Sep 07, 2023 by Dennis Bridges
4 min read

UXPROD-1018 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Problem(s) to be solved

LC needs to track donors. Bookplates not a factor. Donor information is like vendor data: needs contact info, needs to be updated. Sometimes other contacts associated with donors. Needs a way to manage interactions with donor, track communication and status updates in the context of a particular transaction (currently not present in Voyager); needs a single source to manage all records associated with that donor (including appraisals, agreements, other documents). Needs lookup/share/edit repository/depository. Need to track acknowledgement letters and similar. Certain types of donations (incl. major gifts) require long-term/indefinite tracking. Copyright information, permissions form. Stakeholders are internal but not necessarily part of acquisitions workflow (e.g. legal, marketing, communications). Collaboration capabilities heavily desired (particularly for major gifts).

Open Access is considered a type of donor for purposes of this requirement. Need to know what they can and cannot do with a given material.

Can work within the context of existing Organization record infrastructure

Requirements & use cases

RequirementStatusPriorityUse cases
Users can search through donors and identify material that has been acquired based on donor

VERIFIED

HIGH

The library maintains information on multiple donors. A donor might make a single donation OR many donations over time.

Donors must support multiple points of contact

VERIFIED

MEDIUM

A donor may have multiple representatives who need to be contacted for a variety of different purposes. The library needs to keep track of these contacts and their roles.

  • Famous person or people often have staff and representation from legal firms that help coordinate transactions

PENDING

This could be an entirely separate set of requirements and might need to be split out for analysis

Library regards "Open Access" as a type of donor and needs to be able to designate what is and what is not permitted with the donor material.

  • Things that are openly available do not necessarily covey rights and the library is still evaluating how these things should be managed. There is a fair bit of variation in rights and usage within these materials
  • Just because these things do not involve the exchange of money does not make them "Gifts" or akin to gifts. It is not ideal to treat them this way. That includes donated AND open-access material.
  • The Library needs to track copyright-related restrictions on donated material.
  • Even donated material may have use restrictions.
  • Restrictions could be time-based (Can only be used for a certain period of time, or after a certain period of time) Event-based (Only available if certain things are not happening in the world, may be restrictions associated with wars etc)

"Open access" is only a small category of "Openly available" material. 

Users can be given view-only access to donor information via acquisition units

VERIFIED

MEDIUM

Library receives a high-profile major gift. The library must share donor information with library Legal and Public Relations teams to coordinate rights and publicity surrounding the donation.

Users are able to link documents to Purchase Order lines OR Receiving Title records

VERIFIED

MEDIUM

NARA requires federal agencies to work with digital copies of documentation. We provide them with a direct link.

Donor records can be restricted such that a user who is able to view donor information can not necessarily see ALL Donors and their information.

Attaching a donor to an order, invoice, agreement etc. does not expose sensitive donor information in that application

VERIFIED

HIGH

In the course of a major donation, the library needs to track records including appraisals, agreements, contracts and other related documents associated with the donation. These records may contain sensitive or non-public information.

Voyager does not allow users to store or otherwise associate these types of files with records. LCSG is migrating to MS365 fall of 2024. Also looking at Adobe software for managing agreements/contract signing etc.

Donor Codes are added to inventory records when generated by order lines

PENDING


We do provide donor names in bib recs unless it is to be omitted.

PENDING


We have a number of gift and trust funds and some are named after the folks who set them up. Most are associated with a person or a named foundation

Questions

QuestionStatusResolutionRemarks
Need to differentiate major/normal gift?

OPEN



Confidentiality? System-managed vs. trust vs. internal policy?

OPEN



Do the same people need to access vendor and donor info?
Mostly yes, but PII is still a concern
Are materials ever donated by Vendors?
Yes

Yes, the Smithsonian Institute for example we might actually purchase things from but they also may donate materials

Might also get things in error that the vendor says they just dont need back

Are materials donated by groups of individuals?
YesYes, donations are sometimes made by Children in memory of a parent etc.
Can a donor be a person OR a corporation?
Yes

Yes, often it will be one or the other. 

Potentially a mix of people and organizations but no examples came to mind.

Do you associate Donors with Funds?
Yes, some funds are named, some represent various donors, some do not represent donors at all.Yes, we have a number of gift and trust funds and some are named after the folks who set them up. Most are associated with a person or a named foundation.
Does donor information end up on bibliographic records?
YesOccasionally yes that information will end up in the bib record if we really want to acknowledge the Donor. (You can put a 700 field with the donor information)