Gift Entry and Capital Campaigns

Devon Steinbacher

Hello!



We are beginning a five year capital campaign, and our pledges have begun coming in. We are allowing people to pay down their pledges using Raise the Paddle donations at our large fundraisers. We are running into an issue when trying to keep track of these donations. They are being counted as revenue from the event, so they are entered under that particular Fund, but they also need to go toward the capital campaign pledge, to pay that down. Other than using split gifts, which ends up creating a double-counting nightmare, does anyone have an easy or at least moderately simple way to count this type of thing? We want our records to reflect the fact that the donation was made at our event, but it needs to also count toward the campaign pledge. Here is the specific example.



Supporter pledged $50,000 to the capital campaign.

At the event, this supporter Raised the Paddle for $10,000 (not paid the night of the event - supporter wished to send a check) to generate momentum and also to contribute to his campaign pledge.

So now, this supporter's Raiser's Edge account says that he has $60,000 worth of pledges. But in reality, it's just the $50,000 capital campaign pledge.

Supporter has just sent in a payment for $25,000 to pay for half of his campaign pledge.



What do you recommend we do in cases such as this? Any help would be very greatly appreciated.

 

JoAnn Strommen

As you said split gifts can cause a mess.  I personally avoid them too. 



Am trying to think all the variables through on your example.  Guess one factor is how are you utilizing funds/appeals - i.e. how is your campaign strucured in RE? 



Using your example: So that the pledge amount remains accurate I'd say pledge is adjusted to $40K and add a $10K pledge.  How are you tracking your event $?  Can the new $10K event pledge go under an appeal that's part of the capital fund?

For the payment, again if possible I think I'd set up Raise the Paddle event as an Appeal under the Capital fund.  Record payment of $10K toward the appeal, record payment of $15K to Capital fund.  If appeal is not an option, how are you reporting on the Raise event $?  (We don't have events module so don't know how that could give different options or limit options.)  Another way we've coded for reporting when $ is all in one fund and appeal not relevant is using the Gift Code field on each record.  On every record and can be queried / reported on. 



This is good mental exercise for me as we're just embarking on our next 5-year capital campaign also. Not sure how all our funds will be coming in.



Just some thoughts to get the discussion started....



 

Nancy Waressen

Hi Devon,



I haven't come across suca a dilemma but I have three work arounds I would use if I were you.



Option 1:  Create a constituent record with the name of your event, preferably an organization record named "Raise the Paddle". In your donors pledge and pledge payment of $50,000, soft credit $10,000 to "Raise the Paddle".



Option 2: Create a constituent record with the name of your event, preferably an organization record named "Raise the Paddle". Under your donors Relationship tab, add "Raise the Paddle" as a solicitor of $10,000.  When your donors pledge and pledge payment of $50,000 come in, the solicitor "Raise the Paddle" should be credited on the gift under the "Solicitors" on the Gift tab.



Option 3: Track how much the "Raise the Paddle" campaign is doing in the Gift Attributes. So when your donor gives/pledges their $50,000.00, the attributes in the gift can have a Category of "Raise the Paddle" with the Description being "$10,000.00". You'll have to create a custom report to tally and analyze the data once entered.



I hope this helps,



Nancy

 

JoAnn Strommen

You'll have to figure out what will work best for your structure - the reason these forums are a great place to get and bounce off ideas.



To me creating a constituent record for an event is creating extra work for yourself and will requre very careful attention to be sure that all event gifts are soft-credited to the event record and at the right amount.  To me it fits with purpose of appeal as RE is designed.  To me using event as a solicitor involves the same attention to be sure all are credited for correct amount.  In your example you'd have to be sure to only credit $10K of the $25K.  You could make it work though.



Does raise another question - are you recording solicitors for gifts: the $50K pledge.  If so, you'll need to think through if you'll leave that solicitor at $50K or change to $40K if you're crediting $10K to event constituent record.  We do lots of reporting by solicitor so that would mess us up.

John Heizer

The problem is that you don't have a donation made at the event.  I've run into this at several organizations, and as much as they might like to think that they've got $10K at the event, that $10K doesn't really exist anywhere except as part of that $50K capital pledge and trying to count it as income will run into big problems with your auditors.  Yes, it's great to get momentum going with "Raise the Paddle" but even trying to include that $10K as "Gee, look how much we raised at our event" PR will send up red flags if anyone looks closely at your annual report and 990 forms, particularly with amounts that large.

Devon Steinbacher

Thank you all for your very thoughtful replies!



We have the event and the capital campaign set up as Funds, and then our appeals run the gamut of Raise the Paddle, Personal Ask, Raffle, Etc. The main reason that we want to be able to keep the $10k under the event is for budget tracking and reporting for future plans regarding the event. I wonder if creating an attribute might be a good work-around for those gifts that come in at events, but should be applied to the campaign pledge...what are your thoughts on that? It would make reporting easier - but I would still need to figure out a way to apply the gift to the campaign pledge, while also having it pay off the event appeal.



We are tracking solicitors insomuch as each of these contributors has an assigned solicitor, and they add the action of making the ask, and they are alerted when the gift is made so that they can handle the appropriate follow-up.



I would be very hesitant to add the event as a constituent, only because it would definitely add another layer of data entry and open the possibility for incorrect information to be in our system. I appreciate the line of thought though.

JoAnn Strommen

Been thinking about your situation as more posts have come through.  Really, counting the $10K inder the event for budget reporting etc. could be really misleading.  Did your getting the $ really have anything to do with the event?  No, it was already pledged.  Pledge/gift are not due to the event.  What if he made $50 pledge/gift at the event that was to pay his existing pledge.  Your event 'income' (using very liberal definition) would really be skewed. 



I don't think I'd record it in relation to the event at all unless it was 'new' money. 

Devon Steinbacher

Thank you all for your time and thoughts! You've sparked a great conversation between myself and my director, and I think we are on the right track now. You're all awesome!

Christine Cooke 2

Go ahead and enter the gift as you normally would, showing it as event revenue.  Then go into that individual record and open that gift and choose the dropdown menu Gift and choose Apply To and choose Pledge.  You can then choose the pledge that you want those funds to go towards.  That way you get the best of both worlds. 

John Heizer

Christine Cooke:

Go ahead and enter the gift as you normally would, showing it as event revenue.  Then go into that individual record and open that gift and choose the dropdown menu Gift and choose Apply To and choose Pledge.  You can then choose the pledge that you want those funds to go towards.  That way you get the best of both worlds. 

Just a quick warning.  If you apply a payment with a different Campaign, Fund or Appeal than that on the Pledge when you run Pledge Reports using a calculated balance those payments won't lower the balance reported on the Pledge.