Including soft credit recipients in donor counts

Anonymous Blackbaud User

I'm wondering what other organization's policies are regarding including soft credit recipients in donor counts.

My Development Director would like me to compile information regarding the number of donors in various gift categories over the last three years and at first, I didn't include soft credit recipients in the count, but now I'm wondering if I should.

JoAnn Strommen

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

I'm wondering what other organization's policies are regarding including soft credit recipients in donor counts.

My Development Director would like me to compile information regarding the number of donors in various gift categories over the last three years and at first, I didn't include soft credit recipients in the count, but now I'm wondering if I should.

 If we are looking at a donor count, we would not include soft-credits. Trying to think of situation when we would and can't come up with one. 

However, if we were looking at 'donor categories' based on giving amounts, we would consider/count soft credit $.  Does that difference make sense?  

Nicole S

JoAnn Strommen:

 If we are looking at a donor count, we would not include soft-credits. Trying to think of situation when we would and can't come up with one. 

However, if we were looking at 'donor categories' based on giving amounts, we would consider/count soft credit $.  Does that difference make sense?  

 I wouldn't include them either.  Think about this scenario -- you have a constituent and spouse who both have records (for whatever reason) and you soft credit them for each others gifts.  But you have many other constituents who have spouses who do not have their own records and are therefore not being soft credited.  Or constituents who have spouses that you may not know about. Is a couple a donor?  Or are they 2?  I'd really just consider them one.  I'm not going to approach each of them for gifts.  I would approach them as a whole.  So 1 to me in most cases.  Or what about a similar scenario with small businesses and their owners who may be soft credited?  You probably have some businesses where the owner may not have their own record and isn't being soft credited.  I'd consider this one donor, unless she was also writing personal checks. Or a family foundation run by 3 brothers.  1 donor or 3?  I'd consider it one.

Either way, the number just isn't accurate.

Nicole S

Nicole S.:

 I wouldn't include them either.  Think about this scenario -- you have a constituent and spouse who both have records (for whatever reason) and you soft credit them for each others gifts.  But you have many other constituents who have spouses who do not have their own records and are therefore not being soft credited.  Or constituents who have spouses that you may not know about. Is a couple a donor?  Or are they 2?  I'd really just consider them one.  I'm not going to approach each of them for gifts.  I would approach them as a whole.  So 1 to me in most cases.  Or what about a similar scenario with small businesses and their owners who may be soft credited?  You probably have some businesses where the owner may not have their own record and isn't being soft credited.  I'd consider this one donor, unless she was also writing personal checks. Or a family foundation run by 3 brothers.  1 donor or 3?  I'd consider it one.

Either way, the number just isn't accurate.

 This occurred to me last night -- you could also put yourself in a situation where your donor count significantly outnumbers your donations.  If you get 1000 donations this year and about 200 of them include soft credits, you would have 1200 donors and only 1000 donations.  That doesn't add up.  If someone handed me a report with numbers like that I would have a lot of questions.  If anything, I would think the number of donations should be more than your number of donors. 

Anonymous Blackbaud User

JoAnn Strommen:

 If we are looking at a donor count, we would not include soft-credits. Trying to think of situation when we would and can't come up with one. 

However, if we were looking at 'donor categories' based on giving amounts, we would consider/count soft credit $.  Does that difference make sense?  

Thank you! I thought about it more, and decided not to include them. My DOD was in agreement with me.

Even though I know there are several instances where we need to soft credit gifts, they give me a headache.

To pull the donor counts, I used query and total amount of gifts, and of course I can't see soft credits when I use summary information. I then had to clean up the soft credits going by my memory or by opening up each record individually to see if the gift had a soft credit. There has to be an easier way.

Aldera Chisholm

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

Thank you! I thought about it more, and decided not to include them. My DOD was in agreement with me.

Even though I know there are several instances where we need to soft credit gifts, they give me a headache.

To pull the donor counts, I used query and total amount of gifts, and of course I can't see soft credits when I use summary information. I then had to clean up the soft credits going by my memory or by opening up each record individually to see if the gift had a soft credit. There has to be an easier way.

I'm getting a bit caught up with this as well - because we get a large number of gifts from a foundation which routes gifts to us (over 500 donors use this method) and those donors are recorded via a soft credit, if I don't include soft credits, I miss those donors in my counts. I wish there was a way to have two different kinds of soft credits or something along those lines! Amy, if it's of any help, in your query you can output both gift amount and soft credit amount, to easily cross reference without going into each record individually. Doesn't solve the problems, but might remove one cumbersome step for you?

Gina Gerhard

Aldera Chisholm:

I'm getting a bit caught up with this as well - because we get a large number of gifts from a foundation which routes gifts to us (over 500 donors use this method) and those donors are recorded via a soft credit, if I don't include soft credits, I miss those donors in my counts. I wish there was a way to have two different kinds of soft credits or something along those lines! Amy, if it's of any help, in your query you can output both gift amount and soft credit amount, to easily cross reference without going into each record individually. Doesn't solve the problems, but might remove one cumbersome step for you?

In the RE Idea Bank I could have sworn there were lots of votes for the issue about differentiating between soft credit types - but in the 4 pages of ideas that have 'soft credit' in them I could only find these two issues without a lot of votes -- - 'Ability to query more details on Soft Credit recipient records' (12 votes) - 'Tracking hard credit/soft credit' (15 votes) - there was a note from Blackbaud on this that it was 'vague' and was marked Declined. I've seen this topic raised many many times by Blackbaud users over the years -- it's a problem that we all struggle with when we want to query and report out on different situations with gifts and soft credits. I'm not sure how well Blackbaud actually understands the issue. I would encourage everyone to vote on either of the above two ideas in the Ideabank and be emphatic about how important this issue is - after all these years we would like this addressed!

Nicole S

Gina Gerhard:

In the RE Idea Bank I could have sworn there were lots of votes for the issue about differentiating between soft credit types - but in the 4 pages of ideas that have 'soft credit' in them I could only find these two issues without a lot of votes -- - 'Ability to query more details on Soft Credit recipient records' (12 votes) - 'Tracking hard credit/soft credit' (15 votes) - there was a note from Blackbaud on this that it was 'vague' and was marked Declined. I've seen this topic raised many many times by Blackbaud users over the years -- it's a problem that we all struggle with when we want to query and report out on different situations with gifts and soft credits. I'm not sure how well Blackbaud actually understands the issue. I would encourage everyone to vote on either of the above two ideas in the Ideabank and be emphatic about how important this issue is - after all these years we would like this addressed!

 

 I think what Gina and Aldera mention is relevant.  If there were different types of soft credits, then perhaps it would be appropriate to include some of those in your counts.  Like if I had a check from one organization that represented money from many sources.  Like a Network for Good check with 10 donors on it.

My org uses the unpopular method of giving the HC to the individual rather than the giving entity, so that helps us avoid this particular caveat.

JoAnn Strommen

Gina Gerhard:

In the RE Idea Bank (https://community.blackbaud.com/products/raisersedge7/ideas) I could have sworn there were lots of votes for the issue about differentiating between soft credit types - but in the 4 pages of ideas that have 'soft credit' in them I could only find these two issues without a lot of votes -- - 'Ability to query more details on Soft Credit recipient records' (12 votes) - 'Tracking hard credit/soft credit' (15 votes) - there was a note from Blackbaud on this that it was 'vague' and was marked Declined. I've seen this topic raised many many times by Blackbaud users over the years -- it's a problem that we all struggle with when we want to query and report out on different situations with gifts and soft credits. I'm not sure how well Blackbaud actually understands the issue. I would encourage everyone to vote on either of the above two ideas in the Ideabank and be emphatic about how important this issue is - after all these years we would like this addressed!

 

 I know there are a lot of various posts about SC.  Voted on post you suggested.  The 'declined' one doesn't take votes. 

There is this one that has over 100 votes:  http://rediscovery.uservoice.com/forums/137015-raiser-s-edge-discovery-topics/suggestions/2990120-fix-spouse-soft-credits   FIX spouse soft credits!!!!