One of the most important decisions an organization makes when setting up CharityEngine is determining how to structure its Campaigns and Initiatives. A thoughtful structure makes fundraising efforts easier to manage, improves reporting, and provides a clearer view of how different activities contribute to organizational goals.
At a high level, Campaigns and Initiatives work together to help organizations track both broad fundraising efforts and the individual activities that drive donor engagement and revenue.
In CharityEngine, the hierarchy is simple:
Campaign → Initiative
A campaign serves as the parent category, while initiatives are the specific activities that support that campaign. Multiple initiatives can be associated with a single campaign, allowing organizations to evaluate fundraising efforts at both a strategic and tactical level.
A Campaign is the overarching fundraising effort or objective that an organization wants to track and report on.
Think of a campaign as the "big picture" category that brings together related fundraising activities.
Examples of campaigns include:
Campaigns are primarily used for reporting, goal tracking, and organizing fundraising activities. Since all associated initiatives and donations can roll up to the campaign level, users can quickly understand overall performance and progress toward fundraising goals.
An Initiative is a specific fundraising, marketing, or engagement activity that supports a campaign.
Initiatives represent the individual ways an organization reaches donors and constituents.
Examples of initiatives include:
Each initiative can be measured independently, allowing organizations to understand which outreach methods and activities are producing the strongest results.
Consider an organization running its annual fundraising efforts.
FY26 Annual Fund
Each initiative serves a unique purpose and may reach a different audience. However, all donations generated through these activities can be attributed back to the FY26 Annual Fund campaign.
This structure allows the organization to answer two important questions:
Using Campaigns and Initiatives correctly provides significant reporting benefits.
Together, these reporting views provide both executive-level insights and detailed operational metrics.
The easiest way to understand the difference is:
Campaign = The Goal
Initiative = The Action
For example:
Campaign: 2026 Annual Fund
Initiatives:
The campaign represents the larger fundraising objective, while the initiatives represent the specific activities used to achieve that objective.
When thoughtfully organized, Campaigns and Initiatives provide a powerful way to understand donor engagement, measure fundraising performance, and make data-driven decisions that support organizational growth.