Matching Gifts

Cynthia Werner

Does anyone apply the MG pledge payment to the donors total giving amount?  I have a donor who pledged a total of $20,000 and to date has paid $10,000.  The MG payments are $10,000 and he thinks he has fulfilled his obligation.  Do I apply the MG payments to his remaining $10,000 donation to make a total of $20,000?  Hope this isn't too confusing.  I'm under the impression that the donor gets credit for his amounts and the MG company gets credit for their amount.  Any assistance is appreciated.

 

John Heizer

We had a big struggle with this when I first started working here. Some of it depends on how your org views pledges. They are usually a legally binding commitment to give you $X. But the individual donor can't make a binding commitment on behalf of their employer. They can only commit to what they will pay out of their own pocket. They can't even make a commitment from their own Donor Advised Fund (the fund itself must make the commitment).


It took a couple of years, but we finally refined our pledge forms and how we make the ask to ensure that donors know that any anticipated match MUST be kept separate from their individual commitment, that they can't commit $20,000 and expect to pay only $10,000 out of their own pocket. We've also learned to not book the $10,000 matching pledge until we have confirmation from the employer that the match has been processed.

Cynthia Werner

Thank you.  That is kinda what I thought, but he considers his pledge paid in full.  I'll have to try and explain all this to him.  Thanks for your input.  

John Heizer

You're probably stuck doing a $10,000 write-off/adjustment and a new $10,000 matching gift.

Tom Klimchak

I totally agree with John Heizer‍ about how to deal with this situation and yeah, the donor really can't make a pledge on behalf of a matching gift company.


Unfortunately, our current advancement officers went the OTHER way and now they actively encourage matching gifts to pay off pledges.  ?


This is definitely the wrong way to do things, but we process them as simple payments from matching gift companies (paying off an individual pledge) and NOT matching gift pledges and payments at all in most cases.  We could tag them with a special gift attribute if we really wanted to, but it hasn't been much of an issue lately.  I'll have to wait until the next round of executive turnovers to argue my point again.... 

Cynthia Werner

Thank you.  Doesn't make much since but II guess it depends on the organization???