Donor designations/restrictions

Heather Heyd:

Hello,

 We are - for the first time - receiving restrictions for certain areas of programs (that have associated funds) at our hospital. We are seeking suggestions on how to best track them to honor donor intent as well as to report on $$ available for those specific areas.

 Creating funds for each designation is not of interest to the business office. Do others use gift attributes or gift codes or some other method for tracking these designations?

 Many thanks for your help.

 Hello Heather! 

As you already know, the best way to track donor intent is with Fund codes.  However, tracking when and how the money is spent and how much is still available really isn't a function of Raiser's Edge (money in, not out).  Sure, you could set up codes in RE to track this information (probably on the Fund record as opposed to the gift), but you will probably be getting the information from the business office anyway.  I would recommend that the business office track the information in their system, just like they do with every other expense and budget item.  Their system is probably set up way better than RE is for tracking expenses.

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Heather Heyd:

Hello,

 We are - for the first time - receiving restrictions for certain areas of programs (that have associated funds) at our hospital. We are seeking suggestions on how to best track them to honor donor intent as well as to report on $$ available for those specific areas.

 Creating funds for each designation is not of interest to the business office. Do others use gift attributes or gift codes or some other method for tracking these designations?

 Many thanks for your help.

Heather,

We recently received some donations given to our endowment fund with a restriction on their use.  As we didn't want to create a separate fund we have decided to use a gift-subtype of "Restricted: XYZ".  This way accounting can easily pull reports and/or designate a different GL if needed. 

As Josh posted, RE can show/report on money raised but it's not accounting software to show expenditures. 

As to creating funds or not, I would talk to business office as to how they intend to track these funds.  They may decide that adding a fund and GL #s is a good option.

Heather Heyd:

Thanks, all. Yes, we have expense types that reflect how the $$ are being spent. What I am trying to track is the $$ raised (not spent) that are restricted within a fund so we can match those amounts against $$ spent (which is tracked by the business office). Subtype is a great idea - also looking at Gift Attributes...

Thanks!

Heather