Access Database for Donations

[rotze55]

I am tracking donations made by people, what i am having problems with is if multiple people donated pencils I want to be able to see what each individual person donated 

[#2]

@rotze55 

Identify each of the entities you need to track and create tables for them. Based on this summary of the goals for your relational database application, that will include at least the following tables.

Donors--the people who give you things.

Donations--transactions in which people have given you things.

Donation Details -- items included in each donation (one or more, e.g. a box of pencils, three boxes of crayons).

I can think of a few other possibilities for tables, but since I have no idea what else you need to track for sure (tax status for example), I'll have to leave that to your analysis.

Now, with each of the tables, identify the pertinent attributes you need to track. For people, for example, that will include FirstName, LastName, contact information, etc.

For donations, attributes will include the date of the donation, the ID field identifying the donor and any tax related information you might need to keep, if any.

For donation items, attributes will be type of item (pencils, crayons, garden hoses, etc), quantity, probably EstimatedValue and whatever else matters to your record keeping.

Make each of the attributes a field in the table.

Now, decide how to relate the tables. THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT STEP. Invest some time learning about normalization, which is the process by which the descriptions above are turned into tables in a relational database application.

There are many, many resources on Normalization on the internet. Search up a few and dig in.

[#3]

there is a Free Template here:
https://access.microsofttemplates.org/non-profit-database-templates/charitable-contributions-databas...

[#4]

@rotze55 

In the interest of attributing authorship of products to their creator, I thought I should point out that the original version of the charitable contributions template linked in that third-party site is actually one of the templates Microsoft offers in MS Access.

Many of the templates are not that good, but this one does seem to have some useful ideas.

Beware of all Microsoft templates. Their naming conventions are mediocre.

They use "ID" for the name of the AutoNumber Primary Key in tables. While some developers do that, more will use a name that reflects what that ID is for, e.g. "CampaignsID", or "DonationsID".

In addition, while the MS templates seldom do this, most developers avoid names with spaces or non-standard characters in them. This  works, but complicates a lot of references. E.g., not "Campaign Name", instead "CampaignName".

Other than that, this template appears to be a good one to get some ideas from, although being a template, it will have to be modified to fit your needs.

[#5]

Actually, on further review, it appears that website primarily offers Microsoft templates. And although they admit they are not the creators of the templates, I don't see any attribution to Microsoft directly for using their templates. That would only be a problem I suppose if Microsoft decided to object for some reason.

George

[#6]

George
Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate.
Rich

[#7]

Good luck with your project.