Crimson Feature Spotlight: JFC Vetting Tool
Joint Fundraising Committees have seen explosive growth over the last few election cycles. In 2024, political parties raised a combined $3.5 billion through JFCs. What started at the national level is now expanding down the ballot, with state parties and candidates for the U.S. House and Senate increasingly partnering in these fundraising efforts.
As more major gifts flow through JFCs, the need to vet contributions for compliance, especially to ensure donors aren’t exceeding legal limits, has become a significant challenge. This task typically hits at the end of a fundraising period, when fast and accurate review is critical.
To streamline this process, Crimson’s JFC Vetting Tool simplifies donation review by using import matching logic to check if a donor already exists in your database and calculate how much they’ve contributed to a specific fund code. It’s a smarter, faster way to stay compliant without slowing down.
How to Use the JFC Vetting Tool
Please remember the JFC Vetting Tool is designed to supplement and not replace the manual vetting of JFC donations. It relies on the Crimson import matching logic, which depends on maintaining a clean and deduped database. If a donor exists in your database with information that does not match what is included in the JFC file, Crimson will not find a match. This may inadvertently cause you to accept an excessive donation.
CMDI recommends that you always manually check your lists, especially for records where no match is found.
1. From main menu in Crimson, click on the Compliance Dashboard.
2. Select the JFC Vetting Tool from the Dashboard Navigation in the left corner.
3. In Step 1: Upload File, click within the white box to choose a file from your computer or click and drag the file into the white box. Then, select the worksheet to be used for import from the file and click the blue Next button.
4. In Step 2: Import Type, select the Fund Code from the drop-down.
Note: If you select more than one fund code, it will combine the totals into one column, so it is recommended you do separate imports for Primary and General.
5. Toggle either CTD or YTD for a donation total option. Click on Next.
Note: Primary and General fund codes should select CTD while PAC or PARTY fund codes should use YTD.
6. In Step 3: Mapping, match the header names from the imported file to the options in the drop-down fields. Make sure to map all the required fields and click Next.
Note: Since you aren’t importing any gift data, you do not need to map amount or date.
7. Select the Auto Mapping option, and Crimson will attempt to auto map the columns in the file to the columns in the database. If any fields are not auto mapped or are auto mapped incorrectly, you can manually update the mapped fields.
Note: See the Crimson FAQ: Auto and Load Mapping for directions on this option.
8. In Step 4: Validate and Import, click the blue Validate And Import button. This step validates that all required fields are included and that the file’s format is correct. If the import fails, a message will appear saying why the file was not validated and imported. Fix the listed errors and attempt the import again. If successful, a confirmation message will appear saying whether the import was successful with a preview of the output results.
9. Click the red Output for Review button to see the import’s results, which can be saved. The output file will be identical to the file you imported with columns appended on the right that indicate the matched PID, the CTD or YTD total, and the date the load was run. For rows where PID is blank, this signifies no record was found in the database, and a manual search should be done to confirm the donor doesn’t exist.