Benevity - How to Interpret the Their Donation Report

Jennifer Branstrom

Hi,

I am new at my current private school and they get more donations coming thru Benevity than I did at my prior school.

I have downloaded the report that comes from Benevity when our Business Office notifies me of an EFT that comes into our account. When looking at the report, I see a column called Source and one called Reason. I have looked up on Benevity's website instructions on how to understand these columns…though I am finding it confusing.

For example, I have a couple of donors on my report that gave under the Total Donation Column as well as Match Amount and those have a Source of BlueSnap and MyRewards? Does this mean the donor gave through an employee campaign and also had it matched? And if this is the case, would you put the donor's donation on their record as a MG-Pledge first and then pay it as MG-PayCash?

Our organization wants to see the MG-Pledge and the MG-PayCash, even if we didn't know of the match coming in beforehand on all matching gifts.

I search the “Discussions” prior to asking this about Benevity and saw lots of posts, but nothing this specific to my question.

Thanks in advance,

Jen

Dariel Dixon 2

@Jennifer Branstrom I think it's worth noting that not all gifts from Benevity are actually matching gifts. Some organizations have employee giving programs that are managed by Benevity, that may not have a match. They are straight donations and as such, should not be coded as a matching gift.

Benevity doesn't make things easy or terribly straightforward. It can be hard, but I don't believe that it is a good idea to make all Benevity gifts fit in the matching gifts hole, as to say. If you can't determine the gift is a match, then you should code it as a one time donation. However, if your organization wants to see all matching gifts coded even if you had no prior knowledge of the match, it may be worth questioning why. Hopefully you are giving hard credit to Benevity, and not to the employee in these cases. It seems like double work to create a match if the gift and match come in one check, but you could make a case that it is the most accurate way to take a look at it. IMO, I would just code it as one gift, with a soft credit to the original donor for their portion. I think it is okay to question the decision as to why your organization does it like that to get a better understanding of the entire process.

JoAnn Strommen

@Jennifer Branstrom Ditto @Dariel Dixon

In response for how to enter, I recently trained our team member who processes MG/Benevity. Gave her options on getting gifts, MG in and applied. She has said the best option for her is to enter the individual's gift and it's MG pledge if present. The in separate batch she enters the MG Benevity payments. Having filled in until she was hired, I definitely concur that works best for us.

Elaine Tucker

@JoAnn Strommen we do this as well - One batch for the individual gifts that are hard credited to the employee/individual; one batch for those that are matched- if there are fees taken out of the donation we normally take them out of the matching gift so that the individual gets as much credit as possible.

Sometimes matches come in for gifts previously received, so we will go to the originating gift and add the MG pledge, and then pay it off with the benevity money. For Matches we hard credit the company NOT benevity.

Christina Mohler

@Jennifer Branstrom To answer your question about the Source/Reason columns, those should tell you if it's the original payroll deduction or the corporate match. (or perhaps another type of contribution). Sometimes we will get a distribution that only includes the payroll deduction and other times the distribution will also include a corporate match.

I'm currently reviewing our process for Benevity contributions as well as I'm now overseeing gift entry after years away. @JoAnn Strommen @Elaine Tucker Do you find that adding in the MG to the original donation helps with crediting both the appropriate corporation and the appropriate individual donor? And cuts down on the number of soft credits on the gift record?

@Dariel Dixon @JoAnn Strommen @Elaine Tucker Do any of your organizations hard credit the American Online Giving Foundation which is the 501(c)(3) that Benevity uses to disburse funds in the US (or the equivalent Foundation in your country if outside the US) rather than crediting Benevity?

JoAnn Strommen

@Christina Mohler
Yes, adding the MG definitely, IMO, helps ensure correct application of $. We don't SC matching gifts. It shows as an MG so see no reason to SC and usually does not fit our definition of SC (generally employee does not have ownership of $ that is a true MG from the company).

We do not hard credit any record except the company providing the match. We do not HC/SC or Benevity or American Online. LOL just looked we do not even have records in our db for either. That's what I inherited and I'm good with it. Am sure others process differently.

Dariel Dixon 2

@Christina Mohler I don't see any purpose in creating a record for the American Online Giving Foundation. I don't see a difference between the foundation and the parent company. TBH, I don't know if they exist outside of each other. If Benevity decides to re-name/brand/org the foundation, I don't really care if the gifts still come from the same organization at the end of the day.

Elaine Tucker

@Christina Mohler adding the MG Pledge to the original individual donation is KEY in getting credit to the applicable parties involved; it will show up on the individuals record without needing to SC them, and it will show up on the Company record as a Match as opposed to a one time gift.

The only time we hard credit the American Foundation is when we get a very small gift in less than 1 dollar; for other anonymous donors we have “benevity anonymous” individual donor set up and add the $ there.