Help! How would you enter these gifts?

Shayna Atkinson · October 2019

I've been trying to find an example of this but having trouble.

John Smith works for Pfizer and wants to contribute to my organization. He gives them a CC # to make a donation to us, He also signs up for a Matching Gift from Pfizer for his donation.

Pfizer uses YourCause to send the money. We get one check from YourCause for John Smith's donation to us (through the CC to Pfizer). We get another check from YourCause for the Matching Gift from Pfizer.

We enter gifts based on who the check comes from. So we;re entering the gifts as coming from Yourcause. My brain hurts trying to figure out who to soft credit, how to set up MG, how to show these gifts come through Pfizer.....

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Dariel Dixon 2 · October 2019

YourCause is the legal donor. John Smith should have received a receipt from YourCause/Pfizer.

Since you have two different checks, you have two different soft credits. One for John Smith, and one for Pfizer for the matching gift. I don't know if you have to set up the matching gift portion. I wouldn't worry about setting up the matching gift portion. The soft credit will show on Pfizer's record after placing the gift. If you have a Matching Gift subtype, I'd use it on the gift record to signify that it was a matching gift.

Gift A (John Smith's gift) - YC gets hard credit/John Smith gets soft credit

Gift B (Pfizer matching gift) - YC gets hard credit/Pfizer gets soft credit

Karen Hartt · November 2019

We book a little different than Dariel.

We would book Mr. Smith and Pfizer as the donors with a soft credit to Mr. Smith for the Pfizer matching gift. We view YourCause as the conduit for the contributions. I don't believe YourCause is a 501 c 3, nor to I believe they issue a tax receipt for the gift - I may be wrong in that assumption. That's why we don't book or soft credit them.

Elaine Tucker · November 2019

We like Karen Hartt‍ think of Yourcause as the conduit from the donor - we hard credit the donor and soft credit Yourcause (we have one for each company) that way it's easy for us to see what came in via your cause. When the company matches the your cause gift we enter the match on the donors gift and then apply the payment from the company to that matching gift pledge.

Elizabeth Johnson · November 2019

I think you have the two main schools of thought represented here. We manage this gift the same way as Dariel Dixon‍ except we are also going to sc John Smith for Gift B as he has written it up along with Pfizer.

We like to think as organizations like YourCause and Benevity as the corporate version of a donor-advised fund. So we treat them the same way our organization would treat a donor-advised fund and an individual. Think about how you treat your donor-advised funds - are you being consistent? Then perhaps that would be the path your organization would follow.

I hope this helps and it would be great Shayna Atkinson‍ if you share what you end up doing and add a profile

picture. Welcome to the community!

Becky Jones · November 2019

We would treat them as Karen Hartt suggested. YourCause is the vehicle for how we get the gift. The gift didn't actually come from them even though the check did. Also, we don't get checks from YourCause any longer, they are direct debit into our bank account. Much quicker to receive funds.

Susan Leslie · November 2019

We give the hard credit to the actual donor (smith) and do not connect YourCause to the gift at all. When the mg comes in, we hard credit that to Pfizer.

Reta Keenan · November 2019

We have received gifts through YourCause as well, and here is what their website says about tax receipts:

"Does YourCause provide a tax receipt to the donor on our nonprofit's behalf?

Yes, YourCause provides tax receipts through our CSRconnect platform. All donors can locate an official tax receipt by logging in to their employee accounts and accessing their 'My Giving' section."

What I have been doing is receipting the gifts to the original donors and printing a receipt for our records, but I don't send the receipt to the donor since they have already been receipted. This way our donor's record is credited (we don't include soft credits in some of our reporting). I put a note in the record that the check came through YourCause. The only thing I would send to the original donor would be an acknowledgement letter to thank them for the gift.

Dariel Dixon 2 · November 2019

This basically comes down to who you think the legal donor is. Different organizations use YourCause in different ways. It's important to note that in this situation, both the initial gift and the match came via YourCause. This is not an example where Pfizer is just using YourCause for the matching portion. Since both gifts came through this method, I believe that the legal donor is YourCause, even though John Smith is the catalyst, similar to how DAFs are handled. If we received a gift from John Smith himself, and then a match from Pfizer via YourCause, then I would think that John was the legal donor, and issue a tax letter accordingly. Either way, consistency is the key.

I think organizations need to come up with a plan for how they steward those gifts however. Recognition/soft credits are important here, but the tax portion is handled YourCause.

Kristine Marvin · November 2019

I do not use the soft credit feature in Raiser's Edge for these gifts or any gifts. Our organization credits the donor for the donation, John Smith, and then uses the name on check description to credit Your Cause.

Melissa McWilliams · December 2020

We book YourCause donations exactly like this.

Help! How would you enter these gifts?

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