Event registrations as gifts in RE

Meg Gibson

We hold several educational events (webinars and seminars) and are running into an issue with these registrations being categorized as a “gift” in raiser's edge. It is making our dashboard skewed as we may hold these events one year and not the other so all attendees then become “lapsed donors” when in fact they weren't donations but registrations. How do other organizations handle events with registrations in raiser's edge? We do have constituent codes and want to be able to use the dashboard to view our donor life cycle, but at its current state we are unable to do so. Thanks!

Kellie Dentler

@Meg Gibson
At my organization, we would use the benefits button on the gift record to show that a transaction was an event registration rather than a charitable donation. We used the Events module, and would link the registration transaction to the Event. The registration transaction would be linked to an Event Fee, which showed what the transaction paid for (Ticket, Meal, etc.)

Before we used the Events module, we indicated registrations using the Appeal code on the gift record. For example, an event entry ticket transaction would have an appeal code “Ticket Purchase.” This made it easy to exclude those donations from reporting.

Kelly Hunter

@Meg Gibson
I've been searching for a way to have them come into the system as an event registration instead of coming in as a “one time gift" not sure if that's in the idea bank somewhere

JoAnn Strommen

@Kelly Hunter Would also like this ability as well. Our event registrations are not committed or posted in RE. Accounting has a separate process for recording these payments. So when RE NXT was used for a reunion registration form, we now have several hundred ‘old’ payments hanging out as pending because we don't commit them into RE.

When I talked to support about it I was told we can filter those amounts out of giving totals/reports/etc. by fund, appeal or by a code. Doesn't work easily for us. Gifts may have benefits or may not. The fund event regs go to also receives qualified donations. Reg $ can show as last gift and quite easily be pulled into to LTG (which some orgs do, we don't).

I would like that ‘event’ option as well for much more accurate reporting on many fronts including those cites by @Meg Gibson.

Kelly Hunter

@JoAnn Strommen have you seen anything in IDEAS that lists this as a potential? I scanned through yesterday and didn’t see anything - but happy to upvote if it’s there, or add a new one.

JoAnn Strommen

@Kelly Hunter I don't recall if I looked or not in ideas.

Kelly Hunter

@JoAnn Strommen I just created an IDEA under the events tab “Allow Gift Type to be modified when creating event forms”

doesn't look like i can direct link to the idea though.

Brian Soucie

@Kelly Hunter I've voted for your idea ?. What's frustrating about this is that Blackbaud has already recognised and solved this problem in other solutions like Blackbaud CRM. With BBCRM, event registrations are not considered gifts at all but have their own ‘type’.

Kelly Hunter

@Brian Soucie thank you!