Pledge - Delete or Write Off?

Denise Hawks · December 2016

We had a Radiothon and a donor called and made a significant pledge to give by check. It was entered into RE as a pledge, so when the check was processed, the correct appeal code would populate.

The donor was called to be thanked for his generous pledge and then confessed that he did not intend to fulfill this pledge, he thought he was supporting another organization.

I have already prepared reports for this event and included this pledge as anticipated revenue.

Since this pledge will not be fulfilled, do I write it off or should I delete it completely?

Thanks.

Magdalena Sarnas 2 · December 2016

Hi Denise,

Write it off. If you would like to track the history of the this donor and the posibility of culitvating for the future, it would be important to track your interaction with him or her. This person did not request to be removed from your mailing list, so it is not wrong to remove them from your database. I would cultivate with this person at a later time to see if they would be interested in donating after talking with them about the organization they donated to.

Magda

Jen Claudy · December 2016

If you reconcile with your Finance department and they booked this as a pledge, then write it off. If that's not a factor, or they never booked it, then you could also use the Adjustment function to adjust the pledge amount to $0. Either way, leave the gift in RE and fully document the whole situation just in case. Recently, my boss said that we need to let go of some things and instead of spending time to put data in RE, we'll just know it in our heads/memories. I wanted to hit my head against a brick wall. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion I've been told not to worry about or spend time on tracking certain information, and then later asked to generate a report on that information. RE cannot produce or report on data that is never put in. In your particular case, if you have my luck, not leaving it in there and adding explanation in a Gift Note would mean it is bound to come up again and be an issue whereas using Write Off or Adjustment and adding a Note would mean no one will ever ask about it again, ever.

Christine Cooke 2 · December 2016

Denise Hawks:
We had a Radiothon and a donor called and made a significant pledge to give by check. It was entered into RE as a pledge, so when the check was processed, the correct appeal code would populate.

The donor was called to be thanked for his generous pledge and then confessed that he did not intend to fulfill this pledge, he thought he was supporting another organization.

I have already prepared reports for this event and included this pledge as anticipated revenue.

Since this pledge will not be fulfilled, do I write it off or should I delete it completely?

Thanks.

I'm with Jen Claudy -- either Write Off (especially if Finance Dept already has booked it) or Adjust to Zero with explanation included. Never delete when it comes to $$. :=)

Rachel Slager 2 · December 2016

Regardless of reconciling with finance, keep the pledge but I recommend a Write Off instead of an adjustment because the way I pull analysis it's a stronger indicator of intent. What I mean is, we have a phonathon and a bunch of donors who pledge every year and never ever pay on pledges. Two write-offs in a row means I stop anaylzing and in some cases, stop reporting, which you can do by pulling in Query: Gifts Summary: Gifts Count: criteria "Greater than 1" and filter for gift types only of "Write Off". Could probably find a workable method for something similar if you'd prefer to adjust to $0.

Martie Kaczmarek · January 2017

I agree with everyone - never delete a gift once you've posted it - but I would use an adjustment rather than a Write Off; a Write Off is technically used only after the fiscal year has closed. If you know the pledge is not going to be fulfilled in the current fiscal year, that would be a Revenue Reduction; you would make that reduction by changing the gift amount to $0.00 and making a note as to why this pledge was removed from revenue.

Pledge - Delete or Write Off?

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