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Track Budget and Expenses

Goal: See net dollars raised — gross gifts minus the actual cost of running the campaign — by linking expenses to the campaign so the post-mortem reflects real ROI.

Why this matters​

Headline numbers ("$120,000 raised!") are misleading without expense context. A direct mail campaign that cost $40,000 to send, raised $50,000, and ended with one new donor is not the same as one that cost $5,000 and raised $50,000 with twenty new monthly partners. Tracking the cost side is what lets you decide what to repeat.

Set the campaign budget​

Each campaign supports a budget — your planned spend across categories like:

  • Direct mail printing and postage
  • Email platform fees
  • Photography and design
  • Event-related costs (if linked)
  • Staff time (if your affiliate tracks it)

Set the budget when you create the campaign, or update it later. The budget is your plan; expenses are reality.

Linking expenses​

When the affiliate pays a vendor or covers a cost related to the campaign:

  • Record the expense in your accounting flow (journal entry, AP, etc.)
  • Link the journal entry to the campaign from Campaign → Link Expense

The campaign's budget metrics show:

  • Planned budget by category
  • Actual expenses booked
  • Variance (over / under)
  • Net raised (gross minus expenses)

What "net" looks like​

After expenses are linked, the campaign detail surfaces:

  • Gross raised — total of all gifts attributed to the campaign
  • Expenses — total linked
  • Net raised — gross minus expenses
  • Cost-to-raise ratio — expenses ÷ gross, often quoted as cents per dollar raised

A healthy direct-mail campaign typically runs $0.20–$0.30 cost-to-raise. Major-gift campaigns much lower. Events much higher (events are about engagement, not cost-efficiency).

Unlinking​

If an expense was linked to the wrong campaign, unlink it. The expense remains on the books; the campaign budget metrics simply stop counting it.

Reporting​

The campaign performance report rolls up:

  • Gross raised
  • Expense breakdown
  • Net raised
  • Donor counts (new vs. returning, average gift)
  • Channel breakdown (where gifts came from)

Use this for board reports and for the next-year budget conversation.

Be deliberate. A campaign manager who tries to allocate every dollar of overhead to every campaign loses the signal in the noise. The right rule:

  • Link direct, identifiable expenses — things you'd not have spent without this campaign
  • Skip shared overhead — software, salaries, office costs that exist regardless

If your finance team allocates a portion of staff time or overhead to fundraising, that's reasonable to capture as a separate line item but isn't useful at the per-campaign level for ROI decisions.