Recommendations for Gift Coding Collection Process

Florence Middleton:

Hi,

My organization is evaluating our gift coding collection process (esp collecting details on gift funds) to see if there are ways to make gift processing more efficient. Right now, we have a coding slip that gift solicitors complete with fund, appeal, campaign, etc. (this is either physically submitted or emailed, depending on their location). We take the details from the coding slip, scan the gift, coding slip, and documentation to save on our shared drive, and then add the gift with the coding to an RE batch. However, the gift solicitors don't always know the fund for the gift by the time it is submitted for processing, if the fund is restricted, they don't always submit documentation showing the donor's intent which leads to a lot of follow up emails to collect that information, and our gift solicitors are located in various offices throughout the world. I am curious to hear how other organizations handle collecting the information necessary to process their donations and whether anyone has recommendations for process improvements.

Thank you!

What do you do when the Fund isn't known?  If you are waiting for a Fund before entering the gift, I recommend using a "Suspense" Fund. Enter any gifts with unknown fund to this suspense fund.  This way the gift gets entered immediately, and you have a way to track gifts that you still need a Fund for.  You would have to work with your finance/accounting department to do this, if anything is integrated or shared with them.  When you get the Fund that the gift should go to, you can just change or adjust the gift (depending on your procedure for posting). 

 

 

Florence Middleton:

When the fund isn't known but we have a huntch, we will add the gift to RE with what we suspect to be the fund. If it's a larger gift, this prevents us from being wildly off when evaluating how much restricted and unrestriced funds we have. If we don't have an idea, we enter the gift as unrestricted. Either way, the gift is deposited into our general bank account. Recently, we created an attribute that tracks what gifts have been added to RE that still need confirmation on the fund. Once we confirm the fund, we will adjust the gift.

It sounds like you add the gifts to RE with an unrestricted fund and deposit the gift into a suspense fund. Once the fund is determined, do you transfer the money from the suspense fund into your general account? Is there a benefit to having the money in a holding account rather than depositing into the general account? Also, what is the documentation process like for you--how do you collect the fund information from fundraisers soliciting the gifts and how do you store the data?

 Thanks, Josh!

I would feel more confident - even with a hunch - to use a holding fund and not guess at the fund. If you do and it takes a long time to confirm, would there be a possibility the money would be spent on something it should not have. In the holding account, you can be sure of this.