Donor Recognition in Annual Reports

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Sheryl Sweet
Sheryl Sweet ✭
Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Hi everyone,

Curious about how you handle donor recognitions at various levels. We have a various levels of donor recognition in our annual report. We continue to have a discussion on what process to use for recognition. For example: a donor makes a pledge for $15,000, and is paying over xx number of years, would you recognize at the pledge amount level? Do you reconize at the level they pay per year? Do you recognize both the pledge and as they pay down the pledge each year?



Please share your best practices.



Thank you.

Sheryl Sweet
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Comments

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Yes, it can get a bit messy.  A few years ago we changed our procedures for listing in annual report to reflect money received that year.  We added a footnote to list stating it is money received thru mm/dd/yy.  Our annual report lists donors to annual fund for several levels based on that criteria.   We also list members of heritage (endowment) club which is based on commitment of gift, paid or future, to endowment.  We do not have levels for endowment.



    At this point our multi-year capital campaign donors are not listed in annual report.  We have been listing them on plaques / donor screens, etc.  So far the listings have come after most pledges are paid when plaque is put up in newly constructed area. 
  • Jen Claudy
    Jen Claudy ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    We opted to list donors based on the Expected Payment Amount.  So if you pledge $5k over 5 years, your name will appear in the $1k section every year for those 5 years...regardless of when you actually pay.  Because we had a situation where someone "prepaid" a payment for a personal cash-flow reason and it would have put them in the report at $2k that year and $0 the next.  This is tracked with attributes (so in the example, the Pledge record would have the "RecognitionAmt" attribute 5 times, with $1k as the Description on each, and 6/30/20xx as the date, for whatever 5 years apply).  We don't have a high volume of these cases, and the time needed to set up the attributes is negligible compared to the time spent figuring this out every year (wish we could use Installment Amt & Date, but those fields just never seem to work for what we need...).



    At my last job, we also included a Multi-Year Pledge list that included donors of any active multi-year pledge for the total amount of the pledge.  The idea was to encourage donors to make multi-year pledges.  We also did a separate list (no levels or $ amounts) of Matching Gift Companies, for the same purpose...to encourage folks to check for MG programs with their employer, and give extra recognition to those companies who matched gifts that year.
  • Alaina Vengco
    Alaina Vengco ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
    We are just finishing up running our donor lists for the annual report.  In addition to the various segmented lists we run (Alumni, Parents, Corporations, Foundations, etc.) we run a master list by donor category which accounts for total cash giving within the past fiscal year and all NEW pledges.  Previous pledges with payment amounts as "pay-cash" are not listed - but I like the idea of tracking their annual pledge payments and/or listing the multi-year pledge donors.  Glad this topic came up - we may not be able to make a change for this year's issue, but perhaps in the years to come!
  • Elizabeth Johnson
    Elizabeth Johnson ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Under direction of two different directors of development in the past ten years we have listed two different ways in our Annual Report. The first way we included the pledge in the year it was made and did not report on the pledge payments in subsequent years. We changed this last year under new leadership to just give credit for the amount of money that was received in a given time period.



    I find the latter way works more intuitively with Raiser's Edge canned reports. We added wording so people knew our reporting habits changed and it feels good to report on what was actually brought in since our pledges are not binding. We only enter pledges if we have written proof from the donor. We have approximately five write offs a year but some years the dollar amounts are drastic. 



    Whatever you decide being consistent and working with the database, avoiding attributes that need to be entered correctly and maintained will save you time, money, and improve accuracy.  Good luck.
  • Christina Williams
    Christina Williams ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    Most of the time, we list people at their Pledge and Cash amount for the year. For us it is cleaner since the pledge is when our Finance department recognizes the revenue. Occasionally we'll list the pledge payment amount, but this is mostly done when there are donors that we know would question their not being on the Annual Report. It is a bit messy, in my opinion, but I leave that type of stuff up to my supervisor.
  • Christine Cooke 2
    Christine Cooke 2 ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    It can get a bit complicated.  And it depends on your community, your history, and how much or little you are trying to build a donor base (if you are a newer org.).



    In most of the orgs I have been in, they have opted to list the donor in the level they pledged at, which reflects the same standard as the finance department -- you book the full amount in the year of the commitment.  Then in the following years you can list them at the level of giving, as in payments and additonal gifts.



    There haven't been any complaints from the donors.

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