Matching gift payment credited to pay personal pledge

Leslie Arrington

Does anyone pay personal pledges with matching gift payments?? It has been suggested and I have been told everyone does it but I'm doubtful. Thanks.

JoAnn Strommen

No, not everyone does it. We do not apply MG funds to individual's pledge or as gifts on individual's record other than as MG.

In my 12 years I've only encountered one or two folks who felt money should be on their record. Just had to explain it was not our policy. Here at the university we do include MG $ when looking at lifetime giving donor lists but not our other lists.

Dariel Dixon 2

Leslie Arrington:

Does anyone pay personal pledges with matching gift payments?? It has been suggested and I have been told everyone does it but I'm doubtful. Thanks.

LOL! This sounds like an 80's after school special on drugs and peer pressure. I would not apply the MG to the pledge per se, but if the original gift was a pledge payment, I would apply it to the same fund. But applying it to the pledge seems a little shady…

Just remember, when someone is trying to pressure you into applying a gift to a personal pledge, JUST SAY NO!

Rachel Cavalier

Generally, no we don't. We do have one or two supporters who do tell us that the rest of the pledge is being paid by the matching gift - so in those particular cases yes.

Dariel Dixon 2

Rachel Cavalier:

Generally, no we don't. We do have one or two supporters who do tell us that the rest of the pledge is being paid by the matching gift - so in those particular cases yes.

I have a problem with this on a conceptual level. What if the matching gift policy of the employer changes or is eliminated completely? Would the donor be willing to pay the entirety of the pledge? Now, if they are willing to put it in writing when the original pledge is made that the plan is to pay it with matching funds, I'd have to insist on a contingency clause of some sort to determine what happens if those funds don't arrive.

If we are upfront with it and the donor knows that they are obligated to, then it's cool for the most part. However, it still feels icky.

Karen Diener 2

Your legal counsel needs to look in to this.

If I was asked directly (and I'm kind of acting that way since I'm replying!) I would say absolutely not. It may be up to how your legal team interprets the law but this topic most often comes up in self-dealing rules.

I am by no means all that well-versed in this, because I have typically had a robust finance team making the decisions about these topics after much research. But I would recommend reviewing the two links here:

Self-Dealing
Disqualified Person

“Everyone does it” is a lazy response and not a reason. I'm clearly pretty opinionated about this but I really dislike that sort of approach! :-)

Karen

JoAnn Strommen

@Rachel Cavalier dealing with that right now for a good sized pledge. I have org support that is not our procedure and have noted on pledge that amount will be adjusted down amount of any MG. I would have halved it to start with but he's getting MG from two sources and does not know the amounts yet. Another group on campus accepted the pledge as it was or I wouldn't be in this mess at all.

I know there are time we make various exceptions but experience has been that they often cause confusion and mess down the road or bad relations when exceptions made known.

Elaine Tucker

Just No…. for us if a donor makes a pledge and then later says “I'm paying X and the match will come in for the balance”….. we 1. Adjust the pledge on the individual record to equal the amount they will pay and note in the reference field that the payment will be matched by XYZ… we do NOT put a matching pledge on the individual PLEDGE.

Rachel Cavalier

I totally agree @Dariel Dixon and @JoAnn Strommen - if you can't or don't want to pay the bigger amount yourself, then why make the pledge of that size in the first place? The matched gift is a bonus to the “real” gift.

Even better, the supporter who did this often had to top up the final payment anyway because their company would match a US$ amount that would have probably been correct when the application for the matching gift was made but we're in the UK and by the time it got to us the exchange rate would have changed. ?

Jeannie Goings

CASE Global Reporting Standards 1st Edition, p. 34:

Pledges are commitments to make future gifts. Only the entity exercising legal control of the assets to be given can make a pledge. Therefore, an individual cannot make a pledge that includes an amount that is based on anticipated matching contributions from an employer or some other source. Nor can an individual commit funds that may come from a donor-advised fund or community foundation. Any enforceable, countable pledge includes only those funds that will be given by the legal entity that controls the asset and the transfer.

Leslie Arrington

LOL! Yes I agree this sounds like an after school special on drugs and peer pressure. And ?ironically I work at a high school.

Thanks for all of the feedback. I just needed confirmation that I'm not the only one trying to follow CASE guidelines.

Leslie Arrington

Thanks for sending this reference.

Leslie Arrington

Do you included the amount to be paid by MG in the total pledge recorded? How do you credit/record the payments?

JoAnn Strommen

No, the individual has a pledge on their record for $X and when entering, on that gift record or in batch, you click to add a MG pledge. If it doesn't exist you will need to create a record for the MG company and check box to indicate it is a MG company.

When payment is received from the MG company, the payment is entered on the MG company record.