Annual Gift

Stacey Pelkey · March 2015

Hello,

A resident who normally writes (many) checks for memorials each year would like to give one gift for the year and have deductions (per her instruction) taken from the total. I wondered what would be the best way to track this. I obviously have to enter the initial gift but was thinking about setting it up as a fund so that I can record the tribute gifts as she instructs. Any thoughts?

JoAnn Strommen · March 2015

Stacey,

I don't know what kind of an org your with or your fund structure. Do you deal with a lot of tributes? This would not qualify for its own 'fund' in RE for us. Do each of her tributes go to the same fund or each different?

I have a donor who also does multiple tributes during the year. If she asked to do the one gift and use funds as she designated I would just enter the original gift. And using reference and gift note fields record her designations. RE is not accounting so you're not going to be able to show "balance" to be designated. If each tribute has to go to it's own fund you will have to make adjustments and split gift to several funds. In my situtation, all $ stays in same fund regardless of who it is tribute for - for us each tribute does not get its own fund.

Be sure to have an agreement in place with her also as to what will happen with undesignated $ at end of fiscal year. Accounting may not want to carry over.

I would not encourage setting up a special fund for just one gift - you'll end up with a very cluttered, irrelevant fund list. I hope that makes sense. Just my opinion.

Rob Crenshaw · March 2015

I'd agree with JoAnn, unless you are using funds differently, there should be no need to create any new ones. One thing I'm not clear on is what is meant by "deductions" throughout the year. If the donor is only providing one gift, best practice at our agency is to record that total amount as one gift. If the donor wishes to request tributes throughout the year as "deductions" from that original amount, I would probably just add a new tribute to the original gift (if you use the tribute module) and send the tribute card/letter each time as requested; there should be no need to split the gift into installments as that doesn't truly reflect when the gift was made. If there is a remainder that was not designated as a tribute and you track those under a different fund or appeal, you might need to split the gift out as an adjustment at that point.

Stacey Pelkey · March 2015

Thanks all. Rob, I guess I wasn't aware that I could add a new tribute to an existing gift each time the donor requests. Thanks for the advice. Much easier than I was making it.

Dawn Lowe · March 2015

Hi Stacey, I work for a hospice organization, about 95% of our donations are tribute gifts. I don't encourage donors to give one gift and then instruct me at a later date who the gift is in memory of throughout the year. Each gift is linked to a tribute on the day that it was entered, donor gets thank you letter tributee family gets notified. If you link one gift to several tribute record the gift will not show up as a split gift on each tribute record, it will show up for the full amount on each tribute record. For example if you entered $100 in memory of 5 different individuals, when you look at each Tribute Record it will appear as if the donor made $100 for each tribute instead of $20 for each tribute.

You can choose to not link the gift to tribute records, just add tribute information in the gift reference field or a gift note on the miscellaneous tab. This method is not ideal because you will not be able to view or pull this information from the tribute record of the deceased.

Hope this is helpful.

Stacey Pelkey · March 2015

Very helpful. I work for a Senior Community and the donor is the one who suggested making one gift and deducting from it because she didn't want to write so many checks throughout the year. We are trying to be accommodating but will likely not make this a practice for others. Our current practice is similar to yours when gift is entered, thank you and tribute acknowledgement letters are done right away. I wonder if I can change the gift amount on the tribute section as I add each tribute???

Dawn Lowe · March 2015

You will not be able to change the gift amount from the tribute record, you change gift amount or do gift adjustment from the gift record. I totally understand trying to accommodate your donors. I have had similar request from donors, I usually just explain our process of recording and acknowledging gifts. I usually give them other options, such as supplying donation envelopes as a convenient way of giving or have them sign up for recurring monthly gifts that way they don't have to worry about sending a check each month.

Annual Gift

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