Pledges and Matching Gifts

Giorgio Berry:

Our donor is making a pledge to endow a scholarship and wants to use his matches to help cover the cost of the endowment. Donor is giving 10k and endowment requires 15k.  With the matches they will receive the total gift will be 20k;.  We want to add the MG pledge amount (10k) as a matching git on the donor's pledge for tracking purposes.  Does anyone have experience with this?

From and advancement services standpoint what issues did you encounter when entering the pledge payments and matching gifts?  We are planning to using the MG pledge on the pledge record as a tracking measure and still lining the MG payments to the donor payment.

I, too, am confused but I did read this as if you were talking about a traditional matching gift from an employer. If so, then why the question? Is the difference that it is being used to fulfill an endowment minimum? If your endowment minimums allow for this AND the matching gift company allows for it, I see no issue at all.

The issue I do see is you mentioning adding the MG pledge on the donor's Pledge. This may come back to cause issues. I only recommend putting the MG pledge on the donors actual payments. A matching gift company will only match actual payments, not pledges so it gets problematic to do otherwise. Is the $10K from the donor not coming soon? Can you use a proposal record or simply a gift note to "track" this committment to get the gift matched until you have a cash gift to match?

What happens if the donor loses the job or the matching gift company changes their matching policy making the match not possible when the time for the gift(s) to be matched. Is there any contingency in the gift agreement that the donor will make up the difference up to the endowment minimum if this happens?

Adriana Giancoli:
I have the same question as Giorgio: Our donor pledged $20k to endow a scholarship, so there is a $20k pledge on their record. The donor gives $10k, and their employer will match the $10k. The question I have is that when I put in the donor's $10k and generate the MG Pledge (for $10k), there is technically now, two pledges for $10k (the $10k balance of the original pledge, and the $10k Matching Gift pledge). How do I record this Matching Gift Pledge and gift (when it is received) to reduce their original $20k pledge, instead of just the $10k MG-Pledge that was generated when they made their gift?

Adriana - if the donor is only paying $10K then their pledge should only be for $10K. The other $10K should only be on the MG company record as a MG pledge once the first $10K is paid (A MG company will not match a pledge).

As you see that you can not apply the matching gift money to more than one pledge so if you do a $20K pledge on the individual and use the matching gift functionality you wind up with one of the pledges not being fulfilled.

Giorgio Berry:

Our donor is making a pledge to endow a scholarship and wants to use his matches to help cover the cost of the endowment. Donor is giving 10k and endowment requires 15k.  With the matches they will receive the total gift will be 20k;.  We want to add the MG pledge amount (10k) as a matching git on the donor's pledge for tracking purposes.  Does anyone have experience with this?

From and advancement services standpoint what issues did you encounter when entering the pledge payments and matching gifts?  We are planning to using the MG pledge on the pledge record as a tracking measure and still lining the MG payments to the donor payment.

Melissa & JoAnn - Thank you both for your feedback. Do you have any suggestions then as to how we can "accurately" report the total donor intention of $20k (to match the Endowment Agreement)? If I enter only a pledge of $10k, I can't enter the remaining pledge balance of $10k (MG-Pledge) until their gift is made - which could potentially be over several years. I need to be able to pull reports reflecting the full pledge amount as soon as the agreement is received, and also have a way to track the donor's intention over multiple years regardless of staff turnover. Our goal is to record institutional knowledge in RE that doesn't rely on one person knowing the background of each gift. Any additional thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Adriana Giancoli:
Melissa & JoAnn - Thank you both for your feedback. Do you have any suggestions then as to how we can "accurately" report the total donor intention of $20k (to match the Endowment Agreement)? If I enter only a pledge of $10k, I can't enter the remaining pledge balance of $10k (MG-Pledge) until their gift is made - which could potentially be over several years. I need to be able to pull reports reflecting the full pledge amount as soon as the agreement is received, and also have a way to track the donor's intention over multiple years regardless of staff turnover. Our goal is to record institutional knowledge in RE that doesn't rely on one person knowing the background of each gift. Any additional thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I suggest checking with your powers-that-be regarding entering the MG pledge.  Are they okay with you entering it?  Do you have procedures allowing/not allowing you to enter it?  If they want it on reports, do they understand there's a chance payment may not be received?

 While we haven't dealt with MG quite at that $ level, our procedures allow me to enter the donor pledge and the MG pledge when we have notification of it.  I'm not required to wait for donor payment to enter MG pledge.  This has not been an issue with our audit or anywhere else for us.   

Do you have any paperwork/confirmation from MG org that they will be/intend to match gift even if it is at some point in the future? 

I'd check with your execs...in many ways, there's not a guarantee that a donor pledging $20K will pay the full amount anymore than a MG will materialize.