Difference between paying agents, DAFs, and United Way

Anonymous Blackbaud User

In reading MANY threads regarding UW gift entry, I have decided to revamp how I record these gifts, while eliminating the reporting nightmare that are soft credits.  I will give UW hard credit for gift and, in lieu of a soft credit, will create a separate gift in original donor's record with the gift subtype "other". These "other" gifts will not be pulled in reports and will reflect the donor's original gift before any fees.  Both gifts will have the same appeal, the name of which is tied to my question.

My question:

 Can I follow the same process with gifts from paying agents/donor advised funds?  Preferably, I would like to have them all share the appeal of DAF/PA to make reporting even easier.  An influx of gifts from Benevity/YourCause/Network for Good... has sparked the need for a better process. From a data-entry standpoint, what is the difference between all of these entities? 

 

I have an understanding the tax-receipt issue, but I admit that I find the myriad donation methods confusing.  I hope someone out there can clarify some things for me.

Thanks! 

 

 

JoAnn Strommen

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

In reading MANY threads regarding UW gift entry, I have decided to revamp how I record these gifts, while eliminating the reporting nightmare that are soft credits.  I will give UW hard credit for gift and, in lieu of a soft credit, will create a separate gift in original donor's record with the gift subtype "other". These "other" gifts will not be pulled in reports and will reflect the donor's original gift before any fees.  Both gifts will have the same appeal, the name of which is tied to my question.

My question:

 Can I follow the same process with gifts from paying agents/donor advised funds?  Preferably, I would like to have them all share the appeal of DAF/PA to make reporting even easier.  An influx of gifts from Benevity/YourCause/Network for Good... has sparked the need for a better process. From a data-entry standpoint, what is the difference between all of these entities? 

 

I have an understanding the tax-receipt issue, but I admit that I find the myriad donation methods confusing.  I hope someone out there can clarify some things for me.

Thanks! 

 

 

 I haven't had to deal with quite as many of these paying agents as you - but it's a good idea to be thinking about any needed changes to procedures. 

In reading your post, do have a couple of questions.  Why 'gift sub-type' of other?  Why not just gift type other?  If gift type is cash how do you plan to exclude these easily from reports?  Excluding isn't always a workable option in reports. 

Why share an appeal?  I know different orgs use appeal field differently but to me it doesn't seem to match the purpose for the field.  Did you make an appeal to all your DAFs and this is the result.  If you use the appeal to record your mailing appeals, how will you then record someone who responds to the appeal using a DAF/PA?  Perhaps gift code would be a better field.  Just my opinion.  

As to data entry - they are all means of delivering you the donor's money.  How it's entered may be as you've alluded to - being able to generate the reports you need.  

Wish it could all be easy. [^o)]

 

 

 

 

Mary McConne

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

In reading MANY threads regarding UW gift entry, I have decided to revamp how I record these gifts, while eliminating the reporting nightmare that are soft credits.  I will give UW hard credit for gift and, in lieu of a soft credit, will create a separate gift in original donor's record with the gift subtype "other". These "other" gifts will not be pulled in reports and will reflect the donor's original gift before any fees.  Both gifts will have the same appeal, the name of which is tied to my question.

My question:

 Can I follow the same process with gifts from paying agents/donor advised funds?  Preferably, I would like to have them all share the appeal of DAF/PA to make reporting even easier.  An influx of gifts from Benevity/YourCause/Network for Good... has sparked the need for a better process. From a data-entry standpoint, what is the difference between all of these entities? 

 

I have an understanding the tax-receipt issue, but I admit that I find the myriad donation methods confusing.  I hope someone out there can clarify some things for me.

Thanks! 

 

 

I consider all these entities a just payment mechanisms. Without the underlying donors, we wouldn't receive gifts from UW, benevity, etc. Therefore we always hard credit the underlying donor, so we can interact with them and not their paying agent.

Anonymous Blackbaud User

JoAnn Strommen:

 I haven't had to deal with quite as many of these paying agents as you - but it's a good idea to be thinking about any needed changes to procedures. 

In reading your post, do have a couple of questions.  Why 'gift sub-type' of other?  Why not just gift type other?  If gift type is cash how do you plan to exclude these easily from reports?  Excluding isn't always a workable option in reports. 

Why share an appeal?  I know different orgs use appeal field differently but to me it doesn't seem to match the purpose for the field.  Did you make an appeal to all your DAFs and this is the result.  If you use the appeal to record your mailing appeals, how will you then record someone who responds to the appeal using a DAF/PA?  Perhaps gift code would be a better field.  Just my opinion.  

As to data entry - they are all means of delivering you the donor's money.  How it's entered may be as you've alluded to - being able to generate the reports you need.  

Wish it could all be easy. [^o)]

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your reply, JoAnn. 

We use gift type "other" for a different reason.  I basically wanted something that tied these gifts together so I could easily identify them as gifts to not be reported. 

You're right, changing the appeal is not using the appeal field in the way we do it either - I think changing the gift code as you mentioned would be a better solution.

The biggest challenge I've been facing with these gifts occurs when the DAF takes out fees and an employee gift and employer match come in the same check.  It makes things difficult because I want to reflect the donor's intent when evaluating giving levels, but obviously need to record how much we actually received.  I would be so interested to see how other people do this.   

I know, why can't it all be easy?   

Anonymous Blackbaud User

Mary McConnel:
I consider all these entities a just payment mechanisms. Without the underlying donors, we wouldn't receive gifts from UW, benevity, etc. Therefore we always hard credit the underlying donor, so we can interact with them and not their paying agent.

 Mary, we've done it that way in the past, but have been moving towards giving the check-cutting entity hard credit.  Because sometimes, as with DAFs, the money is given from the donor to the entity making it the entity's money.  The donor can suggest where the money goes, but legally the money no longer belongs to them.  But you're right - without the underlying donor we would not receive the money.  It is for this reason I am considering creating the "other" gifts so that we still know what the donor has given through the DAF.  This is especially helpful in cases where the DAF takes out fees.

Nicole S

Mary McConnel:
I consider all these entities a just payment mechanisms. Without the underlying donors, we wouldn't receive gifts from UW, benevity, etc. Therefore we always hard credit the underlying donor, so we can interact with them and not their paying agent.

 I am a HUGE supporter of using the gift type of "other" for UW gifts.  Until there is a better solution pledges, write-offs, and soft credits are simply too much to deal with.  (Ugh, I even know one org that records UW gifts on NOTES and not as gifts at all!)

A little while after we started keeping the UW gifts in the database this way we started thinking about whether this would also be the appropriate way to record gifts from DAFs or other giving vehicles.  In the end, we decided that we were recording UW gifts this way because they were a "necessary evil" because there were so many and for such small amounts and they would never fully pay off the pledge.  We also didn't like SC because we wanted to look at people who had made the intention of giving $100 as $100 annual donors, not as $96.41 donors.   For DAFs and others, we felt that the option of soft crediting was more appropriate.  We like seeing the gifts linked.  There are no fees. Now, you could still SC, but then you'd have the SC and the other gift on the record which just sounds messy to me. I think the deciding factor for us was, would we still HC/SC?  If the answer was yes then we did not use the "other" route.

Another thing to note, many of the organizations that I've worked with have taken the Bill Connors approach to DAFs, and perhaps that had a lot to do with why we made our decision about UW gifts. I know this is a hot button issue and we will never likely agree, but I am of the view that RE is my fundraising software not my accounting software.  This help our reporting and soliciting.  We consider these indivuals to be our donor.  They are the ones that we'd solicit.  They are the ones we reach out to thank.  I don't sent tax letters to these donors (a system we've worked out by using the receipt amount).

Anonymous Blackbaud User

Nicole S.:

 I am a HUGE supporter of using the gift type of "other" for UW gifts.  Until there is a better solution pledges, write-offs, and soft credits are simply too much to deal with.  (Ugh, I even know one org that records UW gifts on NOTES and not as gifts at all!)

A little while after we started keeping the UW gifts in the database this way we started thinking about whether this would also be the appropriate way to record gifts from DAFs or other giving vehicles.  In the end, we decided that we were recording UW gifts this way because they were a "necessary evil" because there were so many and for such small amounts and they would never fully pay off the pledge.  We also didn't like SC because we wanted to look at people who had made the intention of giving $100 as $100 annual donors, not as $96.41 donors.   For DAFs and others, we felt that the option of soft crediting was more appropriate.  We like seeing the gifts linked.  There are no fees. Now, you could still SC, but then you'd have the SC and the other gift on the record which just sounds messy to me. I think the deciding factor for us was, would we still HC/SC?  If the answer was yes then we did not use the "other" route.

Another thing to note, many of the organizations that I've worked with have taken the Bill Connors approach to DAFs, and perhaps that had a lot to do with why we made our decision about UW gifts. I know this is a hot button issue and we will never likely agree, but I am of the view that RE is my fundraising software not my accounting software.  This help our reporting and soliciting.  We consider these indivuals to be our donor.  They are the ones that we'd solicit.  They are the ones we reach out to thank.  I don't sent tax letters to these donors (a system we've worked out by using the receipt amount).

Interesting, Nicole. As stated above, the check (from Benevity) that made me throw my hands up included employee donation, employer match, AND a fee. Old method - hard credit employee in batch and create MG pledge for employer's gift, hard credit employer in batch, commit batch, go into employer gift record and apply gift to MG pledge, linking the two.  However, this messy business with fees is where it gets so muddy.  Maybe I just apply the UW method to all those with fees - thankfully this is the only other entity we work with that has fees.

 

Thanks for the link to Bill Connor's presentation.  It cleared some things up for me. 

Nicole S

Anonymous Blackbaud User:

Interesting, Nicole. As stated above, the check (from Benevity) that made me throw my hands up included employee donation, employer match, AND a fee. Old method - hard credit employee in batch and create MG pledge for employer's gift, hard credit employer in batch, commit batch, go into employer gift record and apply gift to MG pledge, linking the two.  However, this messy business with fees is where it gets so muddy.  Maybe I just apply the UW method to all those with fees - thankfully this is the only other entity we work with that has fees.

 

Thanks for the link to Bill Connor's presentation.  It cleared some things up for me. 

 I agree that those all-in-one checks are headaches!

Unknown

For those of you taking Bill Connor's approach, that is when money comes in from a DAV, hard crediting the donor that directed the funds and noting the DAV in the Name on Check attribute, when it comes time to fill out the VSE, how do you report on money coming in from DAVs under Section 4a. Additional Details on Section 3 - Individuals -> H. Personal Giving Additional Details taking care not to double-count that money?