If you have a written soft credit policy, please share.

Julie Hiland

I looked through the Shared Client Documents, and saw a lot of P&P manuals, but I'm looking very specifically for soft crediting policies.  If you have a policy, I wonder if you'd mind peeling the onion back and posting just that policy in the Share Client Documents section.  Would be SO useful... to me, and the many others who have vented about their headaches with soft crediting in RE.  

(Or if it's easier to email it to me, that's be great too!)

Thank you!!

Julie Hiland

Julie Hiland:

I looked through the Shared Client Documents, and saw a lot of P&P manuals, but I'm looking very specifically for soft crediting policies.  If you have a policy, I wonder if you'd mind peeling the onion back and posting just that policy in the Share Client Documents section.  Would be SO useful... to me, and the many others who have vented about their headaches with soft crediting in RE.  

(Or if it's easier to email it to me, that's be great too!)

Thank you!!

Scenarios I'm especially interested in getting advice on:

1) Board member owns a Company.  Board member gives both personally and through his Company.  Board member sometimes wants to be listed as himself, and sometimes wants his Company listed.  How do you code these gifts and how do you report so that the preferred entity (entity the Board member prefers) is pulled into your list? 

2) Individual is associated with a Family Foundation that gives to our organization.  Individual gives personally, AND the Family Foundation gives.  How do you code these gifts and how do you report?  Who gets recognition?  Who gets mailings?

3) Aforementioned Family Foundation has multiple family members, but only one or two are your primary supporters.  Do you credit just these one or two individuals, or do you credit all of these individuals?  If these other individuals don't have records in your database, do you then create records?

4) Donor-advised gifts:  Do you hard credit the community foundation, or the fund at the foundation?  And then, do you also soft credit the individual?

Aldera Chisholm

Julie Hiland:

Scenarios I'm especially interested in getting advice on:

1) Board member owns a Company.  Board member gives both personally and through his Company.  Board member sometimes wants to be listed as himself, and sometimes wants his Company listed.  How do you code these gifts and how do you report so that the preferred entity (entity the Board member prefers) is pulled into your list? 

2) Individual is associated with a Family Foundation that gives to our organization.  Individual gives personally, AND the Family Foundation gives.  How do you code these gifts and how do you report?  Who gets recognition?  Who gets mailings?

3) Aforementioned Family Foundation has multiple family members, but only one or two are your primary supporters.  Do you credit just these one or two individuals, or do you credit all of these individuals?  If these other individuals don't have records in your database, do you then create records?

4) Donor-advised gifts:  Do you hard credit the community foundation, or the fund at the foundation?  And then, do you also soft credit the individual?

I'll be interested in this as well. We don't have a formal written policy. We receive quite a few foundation gifts, although most are straightforward except for our local community foundation which gifts to us from their family funds, and those same families may also give directly.

Melissa Graves 2

Julie Hiland:

Scenarios I'm especially interested in getting advice on:

1) Board member owns a Company.  Board member gives both personally and through his Company.  Board member sometimes wants to be listed as himself, and sometimes wants his Company listed.  How do you code these gifts and how do you report so that the preferred entity (entity the Board member prefers) is pulled into your list? 

2) Individual is associated with a Family Foundation that gives to our organization.  Individual gives personally, AND the Family Foundation gives.  How do you code these gifts and how do you report?  Who gets recognition?  Who gets mailings?

3) Aforementioned Family Foundation has multiple family members, but only one or two are your primary supporters.  Do you credit just these one or two individuals, or do you credit all of these individuals?  If these other individuals don't have records in your database, do you then create records?

4) Donor-advised gifts:  Do you hard credit the community foundation, or the fund at the foundation?  And then, do you also soft credit the individual?

Julie - you ask all great questions. Sometimes the software can get in the way of common sense. In some of your scenarios you may need to simply create a grouop of "call these people before listing" constituents. Unless you define your soft crediting policy very narrowly you will not be able to 100% accurately pull a list with your prickly donors listed perfectly.

1) I would always soft credit the board member when the company gives and put listing preferences on both records indicating that a call needs to be made to confirm how the donor wants it this year. If they change their minds frequently, you just can't read their mind accurately enough to get the right listing every year.

2) soft credit individual every time family foundation gives. Who gets recognition is up to the donor of each gift. Who gets mailings is also up to the donors. There is NO one way for every family foundation. 

If the foundation expresses a preference to be listed they trump the SC recipient on making that decision since they are the legal donor of their gifts. If they express a preference then they get listed in the catefory amount for what they give. If the individual also gave or just expresses a desire to also be listed you can also list them - if they gave additional to go into a higher category than the family foundation that is ok too. You can actually list them both. But you have to ask them what they want.

Many family foundations are using the home address of the individual donors. In that case we mark the foundation as no mail and only mail to the individual. If the addresses are different we also most often mark the foundation no mail and only solicit/mail to the individual. We assum the individual is our prospect and they decide which giving vehicle they will use - one of which may be their foundation. In both cases, however, the donor can express an interest in being mailed differently, which we will honor.

3) This can look so differently depending on the foundaiton. Sometimes the foundation specifically tells us which family member recommended the grant - in that case we will SC only that family member.  If multiple, I happen to have a one SC per gift so we would only SC one person which gets tough sometimes but we make it work. I would never add other family members on the board who we have no relationship with simply to SC them. I may add them to the record as non-constituents just as "data", however.

4) I create a record for each fund - put the supporting organization in parent corp field and sc the individuals. This way I can run on SC to recipient or Donor OR I can query on gifts made by records with X parent corp should I ever need that (I never have).

Julie Hiland

Melissa Graves:

Julie - you ask all great questions. Sometimes the software can get in the way of common sense. In some of your scenarios you may need to simply create a grouop of "call these people before listing" constituents. Unless you define your soft crediting policy very narrowly you will not be able to 100% accurately pull a list with your prickly donors listed perfectly.

1) I would always soft credit the board member when the company gives and put listing preferences on both records indicating that a call needs to be made to confirm how the donor wants it this year. If they change their minds frequently, you just can't read their mind accurately enough to get the right listing every year.

2) soft credit individual every time family foundation gives. Who gets recognition is up to the donor of each gift. Who gets mailings is also up to the donors. There is NO one way for every family foundation. 

If the foundation expresses a preference to be listed they trump the SC recipient on making that decision since they are the legal donor of their gifts. If they express a preference then they get listed in the catefory amount for what they give. If the individual also gave or just expresses a desire to also be listed you can also list them - if they gave additional to go into a higher category than the family foundation that is ok too. You can actually list them both. But you have to ask them what they want.

Many family foundations are using the home address of the individual donors. In that case we mark the foundation as no mail and only mail to the individual. If the addresses are different we also most often mark the foundation no mail and only solicit/mail to the individual. We assum the individual is our prospect and they decide which giving vehicle they will use - one of which may be their foundation. In both cases, however, the donor can express an interest in being mailed differently, which we will honor.

3) This can look so differently depending on the foundaiton. Sometimes the foundation specifically tells us which family member recommended the grant - in that case we will SC only that family member.  If multiple, I happen to have a one SC per gift so we would only SC one person which gets tough sometimes but we make it work. I would never add other family members on the board who we have no relationship with simply to SC them. I may add them to the record as non-constituents just as "data", however.

4) I create a record for each fund - put the supporting organization in parent corp field and sc the individuals. This way I can run on SC to recipient or Donor OR I can query on gifts made by records with X parent corp should I ever need that (I never have).

Thanks, Melissa.  If I'm remembering correctly, you presented at one of the more recent BBCon's about soft credits, correct?  I wasn't there, but I was monitoring the session list, and that's one that I'd LOVE to have the slides for, if you still have them.

Melissa Graves 2

Julie Hiland:

Thanks, Melissa.  If I'm remembering correctly, you presented at one of the more recent BBCon's about soft credits, correct?  I wasn't there, but I was monitoring the session list, and that's one that I'd LOVE to have the slides for, if you still have them.

I did not do a full presentation on soft credits but I did give my opinion on them during the #geekfight. I do not have any slides - nor do I think my soft credit policy is "ready for primetime". I have discussed the topic a lot both here and on the blackbaud user society (blackbaus . org)