What's the best way to manage trust bequests?

LaVita Gunby 2

Our org received an annual trust summary stating that we are beneficiaries of the account. Although we are excited to receive this honor, we have no idea how to record it in our database as it has no designated amount outlined and the language states we may be eligible to receive gifts upon the trustee's passing, which to us means we may even not be eligible. Anyone have any insight on this?

Dariel Dixon 2

@LaVita Gunby Do you enter any planned gifts in your database? I think this is similar to those. I would not enter an amount, maybe just as a planned gift.

Faith Murray

@LaVita Gunby
What @Dariel Dixon has said, if you have the Planned Giving module, you can enter this as a Planned Gift with no set amount - then when gifts come in, you enter as one-time gifts and link them to the Planned Gift.

If you don't have the Planned Giving module, you would probably just enter a note on the donor's record wherever you track your planned givers (Attributes, Constituency, etc) and not enter anything on the Gift tabs until a gift comes in.

We have been benficiaries of donor trusts before, and they happen one of two ways: we either get a one-time payout when the donor dies and the trust is dissolved, or we get perpetual annual interest checks if the trust is set up to continue onward distributing the earnings. The first kind is much more common and can easily be entered as a regular bequest gift.

Christine Robertson 4

@LaVita Gunby If you don't have the Planned Giving module, another option is to use the Gift Type of Other and a distinct Campaign/Fund/Appeal combination so that you can easily exclude the gift from any reports showing actual pledges/gifts.