online express event registration fee as a donation portion

Erica McKinney

We use RaisersEdge software and are just using online express event registration for the first time.   We want a portion of the registration fee to be a donation.  Which is different than the donor giving an additional donation. Does anyone else process their event registrations this way?  I'm also trying to figure out the process of the event registration fee appearing on the gift tab with our donations. How to keep the two separate for reporting?  If anyone has some guidelines or tips, please let me know.  

Thank you, Erica McKinney     Malone University, Database Coordinator

Faith Murray

I think lots of people use their registrations this way, Erica. It's expected in the nonprofit event world.   It sounds like what you're thinking of is the receipt amount, versus gift amount. When you enter registration fee levels into the Event record under Prices, you have the option to designate the portion that goes toward their meal/supplies/etc., versus the donation amount, by clicking on the button called Benefits and filling in the cost of their goods/services received. The remaining portion (donation) becomes their receipt amount, which they can claim for tax purposes.


To clarify, this is not an OLX setting, this is a setitng under the RE-Events record itself. The registration fee shows up as a single amount on the online form, but when it downloads into RE it automatically splits the fee up based on your settings under the Benefits box. Then, at any point, you can pull a query or a letter using the various Gift Amounts or Receipt Amounts as needed.


Also to clarify, the registration fee, even with a receipt amount, does not go on the Donation tab of the participant record. It can only link to one or the other, Registration or Donation. Hope this helps!

Erica McKinney

I set up the event in RaisersEdge to reflect all of this and it is showing up in the receipt amount.  However, that isn't really how I wanted it to appear on the constituent gift tab. The confusing part is I was hoping the gift amount would be the tax deductible amount.  Because when you look at a consituents gift tab in RE it now looks like they gave that "gift amount" which is really part of their registration fee.  We've never recorded registration fees on the gift tab before. We've only recorded the tax deductible donation amounts on the gift tab.  Also the portion of the registration fee is going to a different fund/account than the donation amount. So I was hoping to be able to split the transaction into 2 different ones.  Is there anyway to do that? I tried to change the transaction amounts in my batch but it won't let me because it has "benefits" attached to the price of the event.    Thanks, Erica

Erica McKinney

To Clarify…..the registration fee is showing
up on the gift tab for the participant.    So do I
have the event set up correctly in RaisersEdge?

 

Thanks, Erica

Cathleen Mai

Yes the gift amount will always be the total registration amount. Would it help to show the gift amount and the receipt amount in one line on the gift record tab to clarify it for your users? You can add this by right clicking where the gifts are, click Columns and then add the receipt amount. You could also color code the gifts that are linked to an event (right click/ under Legend) to make this more visible.

 

Faith Murray

Yes, sorry Erica - you do have it set up "correctly" -- that is, the way RE is designed to work. If you're needing to split the gift amount in Batch, you'll have to eliminate the Benefits settings then, and calculate the receipt amount portion by hand. I can vouch that this can get tedious when a donor purchases multiple tickets, but if it's worth it enough to you to do the manual labor, you could:


Eliminate the Benefits settings in Events.


When an online gift comes in, open the batch and unlink the gift from the Event record. Don't worry, it will still save all your form Attributes in the participant record. The participant record is generated the moment you download the gift, not when you commit it.  


Change the gift amount down to the donation amount, calculating manually. Do not enter the registration fee on the gift batch at all. Do not re-link it to the event. Commit as normal.


Go into the Event participant record. Manually enter the un-posted fee amount onto the Registration Fees tab, but do not link to any gift. Your total amount paid will still be queriable and reportable under an Events report. Then, under the Donations tab, link to the donation portion that you just committed.


We do this process with our Alumni Reunion, because like you we don't post their registration fees either. I'll warn it is labor-intensive though. We have 3 other, larger events that don't require this process. If all our events required it, we probably wouldn't use the OLX event forms.