Fund Category vs. Attributes

Elizabeth Krischer

I'm caught between two worlds - grants management and accounting.

Our Fund IDs currently match accounting: Individual (unrestricted), Individual/Restricted, Corporate, Corporate/Restricted, Foundation, Foundation/Restricted.

However, this did not always used to be the case. We used to have Fund IDs for our program areas: Individual, Individual/Arts, Individual/Science, and also an extra Individual/Restricted.

I recently changed how our development team uses funds, because before reconciling with accounting was always a mess every month, not to mention board reports. My change to Restricted and Unrestricted. This has also been much clearer, because a donor doesn't always just give to one of the funds we used to have.

But our grants team is concerned. They have to report out to foundations about how many donors we have for each program area. So what's the best way to code this? They're used to using Individual/Arts for Proposals and Gifts, not just Individual/Restricted.

My question is: Can attributes be the best method for tracking donor preferences and gift designations that are more specific than accounting's funds?

Or is Fund Category the best way to go, as one of my coworkers suggested? Or is there another magical way I don't know about?

I've never used attributes before, but I like the idea of being able to say Smith Foundation (constituent) gives to Arts and Science, and then the Smith Foundation's gift was to Science. With Fund Category, I'd have to create 5 Individual/restricted funds to go under categories of Art, Science, etc.; or I'd have to create 3 Art funds that go under Individual, Corporate, Foundation.

There's a recent post on the forum regarding Fund Descriptions and Madeline McGuinness asked a similar question which hasn't been answered yet: http://forums.blackbaud.com/forums/t/6995.aspx. Tried looking elsewhere in Forums and could not find anything, especially because this problem is so specific.

Joshua Bekerman bCLO bCRE

Elizabeth Krischer:

I'm caught between two worlds - grants management and accounting.

Our Fund IDs currently match accounting: Individual (unrestricted), Individual/Restricted, Corporate, Corporate/Restricted, Foundation, Foundation/Restricted.

However, this did not always used to be the case. We used to have Fund IDs for our program areas: Individual, Individual/Arts, Individual/Science, and also an extra Individual/Restricted.

I recently changed how our development team uses funds, because before reconciling with accounting was always a mess every month, not to mention board reports. My change to Restricted and Unrestricted. This has also been much clearer, because a donor doesn't always just give to one of the funds we used to have.

But our grants team is concerned. They have to report out to foundations about how many donors we have for each program area. So what's the best way to code this? They're used to using Individual/Arts for Proposals and Gifts, not just Individual/Restricted.

My question is: Can attributes be the best method for tracking donor preferences and gift designations that are more specific than accounting's funds?

Or is Fund Category the best way to go, as one of my coworkers suggested? Or is there another magical way I don't know about?

I've never used attributes before, but I like the idea of being able to say Smith Foundation (constituent) gives to Arts and Science, and then the Smith Foundation's gift was to Science. With Fund Category, I'd have to create 5 Individual/restricted funds to go under categories of Art, Science, etc.; or I'd have to create 3 Art funds that go under Individual, Corporate, Foundation.

There's a recent post on the forum regarding Fund Descriptions and Madeline McGuinness asked a similar question which hasn't been answered yet: http://forums.blackbaud.com/forums/t/6995.aspx. Tried looking elsewhere in Forums and could not find anything, especially because this problem is so specific.

If a donor is an individual, corporation, foundation, etc., this information should be tracked in their Constituent Code.  There should be no reason to track this as part of the Fund code, and it sounds like you have already fixed that issue.  

However, you might have fixed it too much by narrowing down your fund codes to just restricted and unrestricted.  

"Can attributes be the best method for tracking donor preferences and gift designations that are more specific than accounting's funds?"

If your accounting department is not tracking specific gift designations, how do they know how the money can be spent?   If a gift is restricted or designated to a specific purpose, then there should (must?) be a separate fund code in RE to track that gift.  Then you can have funds like Arts, Science, etc. and then on each Fund record you can use the Fund Category field to specify whether it is restricted, unrestricted, etc.  (or I think there is another field other than category specifically for this purpose, I don't have access to RE right now). 

Then, after all of that, you can pull reports for your grants team based on constituent codes and funds.

 

Elizabeth Krischer

Josh Bekerman:

If a donor is an individual, corporation, foundation, etc., this information should be tracked in their Constituent Code.  There should be no reason to track this as part of the Fund code, and it sounds like you have already fixed that issue.  

However, you might have fixed it too much by narrowing down your fund codes to just restricted and unrestricted.  

"Can attributes be the best method for tracking donor preferences and gift designations that are more specific than accounting's funds?"

If your accounting department is not tracking specific gift designations, how do they know how the money can be spent?   If a gift is restricted or designated to a specific purpose, then there should (must?) be a separate fund code in RE to track that gift.  Then you can have funds like Arts, Science, etc. and then on each Fund record you can use the Fund Category field to specify whether it is restricted, unrestricted, etc.  (or I think there is another field other than category specifically for this purpose, I don't have access to RE right now). 

Then, after all of that, you can pull reports for your grants team based on constituent codes and funds.

 

Hi, Josh,

Thank you for your reply. We already have constituent codes indicating individual, corporation, foundation, etc. This doesn't track giving preferences.

Our accouting department uses "Tagging" to track where money should be spent. The revenue codes of Individual, Corporation, and Foundation are the buckets that finance puts money into, and then they indicate through tagging whether or not the money is restricted.

Thanks!

Christine Cooke 2

Elizabeth Krischer:

Hi, Josh,

Thank you for your reply. We already have constituent codes indicating individual, corporation, foundation, etc. This doesn't track giving preferences.

Our accouting department uses "Tagging" to track where money should be spent. The revenue codes of Individual, Corporation, and Foundation are the buckets that finance puts money into, and then they indicate through tagging whether or not the money is restricted.

Thanks!

 Let me say first that if you do not use the Campaign, Fund and Appeal fields that are part of the Gift Tab in the manner in which they were designed, then you will never get comprehensive or consistent reporting on anything financially related.

 There is ALWAYS a difference in the way a Business/Finance department and the way a Development/Advancement department records certain income.  But -- you MUST record the intent of where the $$ is to be spent in RE.  The finance department can do whatever moving around and tagging they want to.  If your systems are not linked (i.e., RE and FE), then you must really work with your Finance department to be clear on what you will call Funds and they will call Accounts.  

Simply put, a Fund in RE is the bucket (where the donor intends the money to be spent).  When you are referring to Grants -- it is common that there is confusion on recording these funds (have run across it at several orgs.).  But the same rules apply whether it is an individual person or an organization - business or foundation - you record the Fund (where money will be spent).  And you use the Appeal field to record that the $$ from a grant proposal/app.  This allows you to use several canned RE reports to pull your information -- allowing you to show who is awarding grants to your org. and for what purpose.  You can even report on who applied for that grant if you utilize the Assigned Solicitor relationship.

 Hope this helps clear things up for you.  

Elizabeth Krischer

Christine Cooke:

 Let me say first that if you do not use the Campaign, Fund and Appeal fields that are part of the Gift Tab in the manner in which they were designed, then you will never get comprehensive or consistent reporting on anything financially related.

 There is ALWAYS a difference in the way a Business/Finance department and the way a Development/Advancement department records certain income.  But -- you MUST record the intent of where the $$ is to be spent in RE.  The finance department can do whatever moving around and tagging they want to.  If your systems are not linked (i.e., RE and FE), then you must really work with your Finance department to be clear on what you will call Funds and they will call Accounts.  

Simply put, a Fund in RE is the bucket (where the donor intends the money to be spent).  When you are referring to Grants -- it is common that there is confusion on recording these funds (have run across it at several orgs.).  But the same rules apply whether it is an individual person or an organization - business or foundation - you record the Fund (where money will be spent).  And you use the Appeal field to record that the $$ from a grant proposal/app.  This allows you to use several canned RE reports to pull your information -- allowing you to show who is awarding grants to your org. and for what purpose.  You can even report on who applied for that grant if you utilize the Assigned Solicitor relationship.

 Hope this helps clear things up for you.  

Thanks, Christine!