Tracking a challenge gift in RE

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Georgia Rennie
Georgia Rennie ✭
Ancient Membership Photogenic First Reply
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion

 Good Morning!

 

Our organization is in the midst of a capital campaign and has been contacted by a donor who wishes to issue a challenge gift.  The donor is anonymous and has said he will match gifts up to a certain overall total.

 My questions are:

1. Where is the best place to track the money that is being matched. For example: if a donor A gives a gift of $500 and it's going to be included in the challenge.  Where and how is the challenge match of $500 best recorded?  Here's another:  Gifts up to $25,000 will be eligible for the match.  Say another donor give $50,000.  Only $25,000 of that will be matched.  How is that best recorded?

2. Should the donors that are giving because of the match be recognized at the level they gave at with some sort of * indicating they were part of the special drive or should they be recognized at the level that the match with their donation is valued at. 

3.I realize they are not receipted for the matched part but I am looking to both track and report what has been drawn down from the match.  I'd like for the campaign reports to reflect the total amount raised including the matches.

If anyone has experience with a challenge gift match I would really appreciate the advantage of your experience.

 

Please feel free to contact me directly.  607-796-0220 ext 309 or via email at Georgia.rennie@ppsfl.org

 

Thanks!

Georgia Rennie

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  • Melissa Graves 2
    Melissa Graves 2 ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 2
    Georgia Rennie:

     Good Morning!

     

    Our organization is in the midst of a capital campaign and has been contacted by a donor who wishes to issue a challenge gift.  The donor is anonymous and has said he will match gifts up to a certain overall total.

     My questions are:

    1. Where is the best place to track the money that is being matched. For example: if a donor A gives a gift of $500 and it's going to be included in the challenge.  Where and how is the challenge match of $500 best recorded?  Here's another:  Gifts up to $25,000 will be eligible for the match.  Say another donor give $50,000.  Only $25,000 of that will be matched.  How is that best recorded?

    2. Should the donors that are giving because of the match be recognized at the level they gave at with some sort of * indicating they were part of the special drive or should they be recognized at the level that the match with their donation is valued at. 

    3.I realize they are not receipted for the matched part but I am looking to both track and report what has been drawn down from the match.  I'd like for the campaign reports to reflect the total amount raised including the matches.

    If anyone has experience with a challenge gift match I would really appreciate the advantage of your experience.

     

    Please feel free to contact me directly.  607-796-0220 ext 309 or via email at Georgia.rennie@ppsfl.org

     

    Thanks!

    Georgia Rennie

    You have not really explained your challenge very well. Exactly which gifts are going to be matched? ALL gifts up to $25K to that campaign (ever?). All gifts up to $25K between two dates? All gifts up to $25K who give a particular way, with a particular reply device, over a certain amount, if they increase their gift, if they are new, etc.?

    The reason I ask is that there may not be a need to "code" these at all. If they are all gifts with a "Capital" campaign code between two dates, you can easily query on that at any time to know how much is going to be matched.

    If you have any other criteria, then it gets iffy and the gift processor likely has to determine eligibility as each gift is entered. How you code them depends on how you use codes now. Is this a special appeal, a special campaign, do you need to use an attribute because you can not use either appeal or campaign - I do not know.

    As far as recognition, I have never added to the recognition total for donors participating in match campaigns. I have not heard of that being done other places either, but I could be wrong.

    PS - user forums are for the good of everyone, others may have the same question now or in the future and replies are best kept on the forum - not taken to the asker directly. If you do get any responses offline, can you please be sure to come back and share them here.

  • Georgia Rennie
    Georgia Rennie ✭
    Ancient Membership Photogenic First Reply
    Melissa Graves:

    You have not really explained your challenge very well. Exactly which gifts are going to be matched? ALL gifts up to $25K to that campaign (ever?). All gifts up to $25K between two dates? All gifts up to $25K who give a particular way, with a particular reply device, over a certain amount, if they increase their gift, if they are new, etc.?

    The reason I ask is that there may not be a need to "code" these at all. If they are all gifts with a "Capital" campaign code between two dates, you can easily query on that at any time to know how much is going to be matched.

    If you have any other criteria, then it gets iffy and the gift processor likely has to determine eligibility as each gift is entered. How you code them depends on how you use codes now. Is this a special appeal, a special campaign, do you need to use an attribute because you can not use either appeal or campaign - I do not know.

    As far as recognition, I have never added to the recognition total for donors participating in match campaigns. I have not heard of that being done other places either, but I could be wrong.

    PS - user forums are for the good of everyone, others may have the same question now or in the future and replies are best kept on the forum - not taken to the asker directly. If you do get any responses offline, can you please be sure to come back and share them here.

     Melissa,

     

    Let me try again using fake names and fake amounts.

    Here's the basics: John Doe has offered up to $500,000 for the challenge.  He is anonymous.

    We will be using the challenge to generate gifts from 10/18 to 12/31/13.  The gifts eligible are from $1 to $25,000.  If someone gives $50,000 only the first $25,000 will be matched.  If someone gives 8 gifts within the date range each gift will be eligible for the match up to the total of $25K.

     The campaign leadership, understandably, wants reports that reflect the total raised.  So when Jane Smith gives a gift of $10,000 they not only want to know that her gift fell within the match but they want to A)know on reports that the total raised is actually $20,000 and B) that we have drawn down $10K from the $500K making the remaining money available to match $490K. If Jane Smith gave $50K only $25K of that gift would be matched making the total raised for this one transaction $75K

    It was suggested to me that we should track this on the Jane Smith's record as a $20,000 gift as because without her actual gift of $10K it would not have been.  Or, in the second scenario, recording as a 75K gift.  I'm not comfortable with that because it doesn't reflect her actual giving history for the future and even with the idea that I can receipt just the $10K, it feels wrong and I think there should be a better way.

    I know I could use a gift attribute to code the gift as part of the matching challenge and I could even put the portion of their gift that was matched. But that does not allow me to report out accurate $ raised on reports.  

    In regards to the recognition, I am not really on board with the idea that totals (include matching amount) for donors participating by their giving level.  I think that it would be better to either indicate these donors participated in the challenge with an * and then note that each of these gifts were doubled up to $25K.  Or, we could create a special section of donors that lists all those in this category.  However, I have never handled this sort of thing before and wanted to see how other organizations handle it.  One person on our committee was involved in another organization and said they handled it by listing people at the increased amount because if they hadn't given the gift we wouldn't have received the match.

    I totally understand the need to keep things posted on the forums, as I pick up a great deal of info from then as they come through.  I just thought that someone might want to ask more detailed info and didn't want to clog up the forum.  I would absolutely post the result of comments once I had received them. 

    Thanks in advance for thinking about this.

     Georgia

  • Nina Williams
    Nina Williams ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1
    Georgia Rennie:

     Good Morning!

     

    Our organization is in the midst of a capital campaign and has been contacted by a donor who wishes to issue a challenge gift.  The donor is anonymous and has said he will match gifts up to a certain overall total.

     My questions are:

    1. Where is the best place to track the money that is being matched. For example: if a donor A gives a gift of $500 and it's going to be included in the challenge.  Where and how is the challenge match of $500 best recorded?  Here's another:  Gifts up to $25,000 will be eligible for the match.  Say another donor give $50,000.  Only $25,000 of that will be matched.  How is that best recorded?

    2. Should the donors that are giving because of the match be recognized at the level they gave at with some sort of * indicating they were part of the special drive or should they be recognized at the level that the match with their donation is valued at. 

    3.I realize they are not receipted for the matched part but I am looking to both track and report what has been drawn down from the match.  I'd like for the campaign reports to reflect the total amount raised including the matches.

    If anyone has experience with a challenge gift match I would really appreciate the advantage of your experience.

     

    Please feel free to contact me directly.  607-796-0220 ext 309 or via email at Georgia.rennie@ppsfl.org

     

    Thanks!

    Georgia Rennie

     We are in the same kind of matching grant situation.  

    We may be over simplifying things but here is how we are handling it.  We sent a special appeal out for the match so we are tracking gifts through that.  When we send a report to the foundation, I will be exporting the entire list of gifts for that appeal, then sorting by amount.  Our match is for $250 and above only so we will be deleting on the Excel report those gifts that do not qualify.  These are quarterly reports so the gift dates pulled will be only the quarter in question. 

    We though of using appeal packages to track those gift which qualify for the match, but decided to use them to track another aspect of the challenge.

     As for recognition.  Donors get recognized for their gifts and the foundation is recognized for its gift.  As we do not soft-credit donors for the match amount the recognition is pretty black and white.   

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Georgia Rennie:

     Melissa,

     

    Let me try again using fake names and fake amounts.

    Here's the basics: John Doe has offered up to $500,000 for the challenge.  He is anonymous.

    We will be using the challenge to generate gifts from 10/18 to 12/31/13.  The gifts eligible are from $1 to $25,000.  If someone gives $50,000 only the first $25,000 will be matched.  If someone gives 8 gifts within the date range each gift will be eligible for the match up to the total of $25K.

     The campaign leadership, understandably, wants reports that reflect the total raised.  So when Jane Smith gives a gift of $10,000 they not only want to know that her gift fell within the match but they want to A)know on reports that the total raised is actually $20,000 and B) that we have drawn down $10K from the $500K making the remaining money available to match $490K. If Jane Smith gave $50K only $25K of that gift would be matched making the total raised for this one transaction $75K

    It was suggested to me that we should track this on the Jane Smith's record as a $20,000 gift as because without her actual gift of $10K it would not have been.  Or, in the second scenario, recording as a 75K gift.  I'm not comfortable with that because it doesn't reflect her actual giving history for the future and even with the idea that I can receipt just the $10K, it feels wrong and I think there should be a better way.

    I know I could use a gift attribute to code the gift as part of the matching challenge and I could even put the portion of their gift that was matched. But that does not allow me to report out accurate $ raised on reports.  

    In regards to the recognition, I am not really on board with the idea that totals (include matching amount) for donors participating by their giving level.  I think that it would be better to either indicate these donors participated in the challenge with an * and then note that each of these gifts were doubled up to $25K.  Or, we could create a special section of donors that lists all those in this category.  However, I have never handled this sort of thing before and wanted to see how other organizations handle it.  One person on our committee was involved in another organization and said they handled it by listing people at the increased amount because if they hadn't given the gift we wouldn't have received the match.

    I totally understand the need to keep things posted on the forums, as I pick up a great deal of info from then as they come through.  I just thought that someone might want to ask more detailed info and didn't want to clog up the forum.  I would absolutely post the result of comments once I had received them. 

    Thanks in advance for thinking about this.

     Georgia

    Is using an appeal an option for you?  Yes, you could filter on gifts during that time frame also.  But to only include $25K of a $50K gift, you could use an appeal and enter it as two separate amounts with $25 going to your matching appeal and the other just going to the fund without the appeal.

    Your campaign leadership needs to be smart enough so that when you run a report of gifts to the match appeal they multiply it by 2 to know what they have raised.  Or possibly if you're including pledges in your reports and pledge from John Doe is confirmed, you could enter a pledge for the month/reporting period on John Doe's record for the amount you've received so far. Add another pledge or adjust amount for each reporting period. The same thing as far as what amount remains to be matched.  Subtract.  If they can't handle that then add it for them on the spreadsheet or as a footer to your report. 

    We would never record the 20K on Jane Smith's record.  She did not give $20K.  She gave $10K.  And we would not include money from a match like this to raise a person's total giving.  The money is from the anonymous donor and we wouldn't double count it for recognition.  I could buy into the "*" for those who participated in the match or a section listing them.  We have done a separate listing for donors during a match.

    Just another opinion...

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