Split pledges - specifying funds over time

James Andrews

We have not used split gifts much in the past, but are strongly considering it currently. Here's my dilemma: Imagine someone makes a two year pledge of $10,000, $5,000 in year 1 for FundX and $5,000 in year 2 for FundY. Is there any way to specify in the pledge the distribution per installment? I don't think there is, but just wanted to be sure.

Denise Covington

James Andrews:
We have not used split gifts much in the past, but are strongly considering it currently. Here's my dilemma: Imagine someone makes a two year pledge of $10,000, $5,000 in year 1 for FundX and $5,000 in year 2 for FundY. Is there any way to specify in the pledge the distribution per installment? I don't think there is, but just wanted to be sure.

Unless reporting and writing off for split pledges and payments have improved significantly over the last 4 years, I would strongly not recommend entering split pledges or split gifts.

If I am remembering correctly, you can't tell RE to write off only one of the pledges, or what distribution.  RE determines it for you and I think it was 50/50%.  

Trying to figure out which fund was written off was not pleasant either via the canned reports.

Maybe (hopefully) BB has fixed these things, however, because of my past experience, I would never move to entering split pledges.

 

James Andrews

Denise Covington:

Unless reporting and writing off for split pledges and payments have improved significantly over the last 4 years, I would strongly not recommend entering split pledges or split gifts.

If I am remembering correctly, you can't tell RE to write off only one of the pledges, or what distribution.  RE determines it for you and I think it was 50/50%.  

Trying to figure out which fund was written off was not pleasant either via the canned reports.

Maybe (hopefully) BB has fixed these things, however, because of my past experience, I would never move to entering split pledges.

 

Ugh, that was what I didn't want to hear -- and that would make sense considering how they seem to have things linked in the DB.

I still wonder how you report on split gifts then. Part of the reason we're doing this is that we have what could be considered an enviable problem -- people making a large commitment to us, for several different purposes, some of which aren't even determined yet. Like, "Yes, I'm pledging $1,000,000 over the next three years, purpose TBD." So it's a legal pledge, just not sure what for yet -- and often it's for several things. The problem becomes, how do you show that person has made a $1M gift, if you've entered it as several separate gifts?

I mean, I understand aggregate/summary reporting over a year's time or life of campaign or whatever. But often you get a request like, "pull me a report of million-dollar donors", and they're not looking for people who have given a total of $1M, but people who can make a $1M gift. I was hoping to avoid that by splitting things up, but if it's going to cause more problems than it's worth, I'll have to look at some other way around it.

JoAnn Strommen

James Andrews:
Ugh, that was what I didn't want to hear -- and that would make sense considering how they seem to have things linked in the DB.

I still wonder how you report on split gifts then. Part of the reason we're doing this is that we have what could be considered an enviable problem -- people making a large commitment to us, for several different purposes, some of which aren't even determined yet. Like, "Yes, I'm pledging $1,000,000 over the next three years, purpose TBD." So it's a legal pledge, just not sure what for yet -- and often it's for several things. The problem becomes, how do you show that person has made a $1M gift, if you've entered it as several separate gifts?

I mean, I understand aggregate/summary reporting over a year's time or life of campaign or whatever. But often you get a request like, "pull me a report of million-dollar donors", and they're not looking for people who have given a total of $1M, but people who can make a $1M gift. I was hoping to avoid that by splitting things up, but if it's going to cause more problems than it's worth, I'll have to look at some other way around it.

As far as I know there are still the "issues/problems" (what the users call it) with split gifts.  Per BB, it's working as designed. 

For your situation, I would consider (am dealing with large gift right now that powers that be haven't determined how it will be used) asking if you can set up a "holding fund".  This is what I'm going to do, anyway.   I'm looking for a place to enter the gift so it can be receipted/reported etc while they still work out where it will all go.  I could see a 'holding fund' working same way with a pledge.  Your org would have to set some guidelines for how you report/handle it but believe I read posts from another user some time ago in the forums that used this approach.  Maybe talk to accounting...how do they expect to enter a gift like that...

Just a thought.

James Andrews

JoAnn Strommen:

As far as I know there are still the "issues/problems" (what the users call it) with split gifts.  Per BB, it's working as designed. 

For your situation, I would consider (am dealing with large gift right now that powers that be haven't determined how it will be used) asking if you can set up a "holding fund".  This is what I'm going to do, anyway.   I'm looking for a place to enter the gift so it can be receipted/reported etc while they still work out where it will all go.  I could see a 'holding fund' working same way with a pledge.  Your org would have to set some guidelines for how you report/handle it but believe I read posts from another user some time ago in the forums that used this approach.  Maybe talk to accounting...how do they expect to enter a gift like that...

Just a thought.

Thanks JoAnn - we do have a holding fund for that purpose. In this case, though, some pledges have portions that are designated.

I'm trying to think of a way around this (besides, obviously, RE adding campaign and fund fields to installments), but nothing is coming to mind that isn't quite labor intensive.

JoAnn Strommen

James Andrews:
Thanks JoAnn - we do have a holding fund for that purpose. In this case, though, some pledges have portions that are designated.

I'm trying to think of a way around this (besides, obviously, RE adding campaign and fund fields to installments), but nothing is coming to mind that isn't quite labor intensive.

Yep, if they split it out into 1000 designations of $1000, I can see where it would be labor intensive.[:S]   Still think I'd avoid split pledges though.

Was thinking about your need to be able to identify those able to do single gift of 1M.  If you don't want to have to pull in a query by total giving for set period of time - maybe a constituent attribute, consitituent code, notes (be consistent in data entry), solicit code or perhaps the target field on bio 2 if you aren't using it for anything else.  Just some thoughts...

Denise Covington

JoAnn Strommen:

Yep, if they split it out into 1000 designations of $1000, I can see where it would be labor intensive.[:S]   Still think I'd avoid split pledges though.

Was thinking about your need to be able to identify those able to do single gift of 1M.  If you don't want to have to pull in a query by total giving for set period of time - maybe a constituent attribute, consitituent code, notes (be consistent in data entry), solicit code or perhaps the target field on bio 2 if you aren't using it for anything else.  Just some thoughts...

Another option:  Ensure all gifts to the capital campaign are entered with a single and unique  campaign such as "2014-xx capital campaign."  Then you can run a constituent export and export out  summary information --> Gifts --> Total Gift amount field and filter the grouping by that campaign.  Since our gifts are split, the only way we can figure out those million dollar donors/prospects are is to do the above.

Doesn't fix it for the canned reports, but does allow to find the donors for future reference.

There are gift detail and summary reports you can run filtered on campaign instead of fund.  Funds need to match for accounting, but the campaign can match for Development.

 One more idea:  You can enter the single pledge, but have gift attributes to split out the restrictions.  Again, not sure how reporting would work.  It would have to be well thought out and planned.

James Andrews

Denise Covington:

Another option:  Ensure all gifts to the capital campaign are entered with a single and unique  campaign such as "2014-xx capital campaign."  Then you can run a constituent export and export out  summary information --> Gifts --> Total Gift amount field and filter the grouping by that campaign.  Since our gifts are split, the only way we can figure out those million dollar donors/prospects are is to do the above.

Doesn't fix it for the canned reports, but does allow to find the donors for future reference.

There are gift detail and summary reports you can run filtered on campaign instead of fund.  Funds need to match for accounting, but the campaign can match for Development.

 One more idea:  You can enter the single pledge, but have gift attributes to split out the restrictions.  Again, not sure how reporting would work.  It would have to be well thought out and planned.

Yeah, I was imagining somehow linking split gifts using some form of ID, but that's the kind of manual shenanigans I didn't want to introduce. Sigh. Why does this have to be so complicated?

JoAnn Strommen

James Andrews:
Yeah, I was imagining somehow linking split gifts using some form of ID, but that's the kind of manual shenanigans I didn't want to introduce. Sigh. Why does this have to be so complicated?

[:'(] Can feel your pain.

I wouldn't try to link or note on gifts but just make a one time entry on the constituent entry. Makes it a little more manageable.  If you have thousands of donors making those size one-time gifts I'm jealous.