Soft crediting without soft credits?

Does anyone have any innovative methods for sharing credit for a gift without using soft credits? Or, posting a gift clearly identified as a non-gift?


For one of our events, a group promised to donate in-kind items for our auction. A mutual volunteer fronted the cash to buy the items, asking that the items be attributed to the group's record for donor credit. Now, after the event is past, three groups are collaborating to pay us cash and we are expected to cut a check to reimburse our volunteer.


In my mind, the in-kind items were never really donated by the group. The group has donated a partial cash payment, and we ourselves used the cash donation to purchase the needed items. My preference was to delete the in-kind gifts from the group's constituent record and replace it with the cash gift. To leave both would appear as though the group had donated double. However, our director wants to see the items in the group record so that next year we can pull a "who donated what" list to solicit gifts again in 2018. My suggestion of simply noting in the cash reference that the cash was used to purchase items, is apparently inadequate because everyone on the event committee perceives the group as donating the items. I know that soft credits might solve this issue, but we do not use soft credits.


Any ideas on the best way to do this?