Hi @ShannonMGO! It sounds like you're trying to find a visual way to manage and organize your portfolio of major gift donors, incorporating several key data points like location, program interests, and engagement level. You want something flexible that allows for easy updates and ideally includes task management.
You can use Lucidchart to help you visualize and manage this information effectively. While one single chart might get a little crowded, Lucidchart's layers and linking features can create a powerful system. And yes, you can import your spreadsheet data and use it to populate your visuals.
Here are a few template ideas and strategies that would be helpful for your needs:
- Mind Map: A mind map could be a great starting point. Your central topic could be "Major Donors," and then branches could represent geographic locations. From those branches, you could have sub-branches for program interests, and then use different shapes or colors for engagement levels. You can easily move branches or change colors as needed. While mind maps are good for hierarchical information, it might be challenging to filter by multiple criteria at once easily.
- Org Chart: While typically used for organizational structures, an org chart could be adapted for your purposes. Each "node" could represent a donor. You could use color-coding for location, shape for program interest, and size for engagement level. This allows for a visual representation of the hierarchy and can be useful for seeing how your donors are distributed across different categories.
- Kanban Board: A Kanban board is great for visualizing workflows and tasks. You could create columns for different stages of the donor relationship. Then, use cards for each donor, color-coding them by location or program interest. You can easily move cards between columns as their engagement progresses. This is particularly good for task management.
- Swimlane Diagram: Swimlanes are useful for showing processes across different people or categories. You could have swimlanes for each program area, and then place donor "cards" within the appropriate swimlane. Color-coding could then be used for location or engagement level.
The most powerful solution might be a combination. Maybe start with a map of your geographic regions. Each region could be a container. Within each region, you could use a Kanban-style board or a mind map branch to further categorize donors by program interest and engagement level. You can use layers to toggle between views (e.g., one layer showing geographic distribution, another showing program interest distribution).
Importing and Organizing Data: Yes, you can import your spreadsheet. Lucidchart allows you to import data from Excel, Google Sheets, and CSV files. You can then map the columns in your spreadsheet to the shapes and data fields in your Lucidchart diagram. This will automate the creation of your visual representation.
Key Features to Use:
- Containers: Use containers to group donors by geographic location.
- Color-Coding: Use color-coding for engagement levels.
- Shapes: Use different shapes for program interests.
- Layers: Use layers to create different views of your data (e.g., one layer showing all donors, another showing donors interested in education).
- Data Linking: Link data from your spreadsheet to your shapes so that updates are reflected automatically.
- Task Management: Leverage Lucid Cards for Asana, Jira, Smartsheet, monday.com, and Azure DevOps to import tasks into Lucidspark or create new ones, connecting your visual collaboration with your project management workflow.
I would suggest experimenting with a few different templates and approaches to see what works best for you. Start with a small subset of your data to test your setup before importing everything. Lucidchart's support resources and tutorials can also be very helpful in getting you started.
Let us know if you have any other questions!
