Grant recognition in Annual Reports

Sunshine Reinken Watson · February 2016

We record Grants in the fiscal year they are received regardless of if they cover future FY programs (or programs across a span of several fiscal years). Therefore, the year that the grant is received is the year the grantor receives recognition in the annual report. Do you have a policy about this? Does anyone recognize grantors for the FY(s) that the grant actually covers? If so, do you also record that grant under that different FY in Raiser's Edge?

Barbara Van Handel · February 2016

We recognize Grants when they are pledged as Pledges and Development takes "credit" for the income at that time even though we may not receive payment until some later date. Some of these pledges can be over several fiscal years but the credit was already taken and that "income" shows on reports at the time of the pledge.

Amanda Johnson · February 2016

Sunshine,

We record grants in the fiscal year that they are received, although if they are intended for a future FY and meet a certain dollar threshhold determined by our controller, they are "carried over" and reported in the future fiscal year on our books. (They go into RE with the real gift date, but in our internal reports to our Board and in our controller's books they get reported in the FY that the grant covers. It makes for some extra review and manipulation required when producing reports, but we don't have too many of these cases so they are manageable.)

As for recognition, we usually recognize the grantors in the annual report for the period that the grant covers, but we always discuss this with the grantor to prevent misunderstandings.

Christine Cooke 2 · February 2016

we also record grants in the year received.

Nicole S · February 2016

We've been trying to decide this as well. I haven't been able to find any standard or typical practices. List in the AR for full pledge or payments or both? Or how whether to break out events donors or list ticket purchases or estates. So many variables and I feel like everyone has a different opinon or struggles with whether they did it the best way last year. And god forbid a donor call to complain because that makes everyone even more indecisive. I'd love to see some standards if anyone knows where to look.

JoAnn Strommen · February 2016

LOL!!! So feel your pain. Just sent our report to printers this a.m.

Don't know of any standards. A few years ago, I changed our annual report to list "gifts received by 12/31/XX" so it's gifts/payments, not pledges. Of course nothing can be so simple. Have to add gifts received from board & staff the year previous that were to that year's fund and check for gifts the first week of Jan that need to be included. My CDO says it doesn't cost anything to list someone's name but I'm always looking for black and white of what and whom to list. Fortunately we haven't had any donor complaints. List is specifically titled that it's donors to ABC fund. We don't list ticket/event purchases, GIK. As one of our branch Ys had a dinner/dance event that had proceeds go to the ABC fund, I just listed the name of the event "Dinner and Dance participants" in the donor list.

You may want to post your question about standards on http://fundsvcs.org. Seeif anyone there knows of some standards.

Melissa S Graves · February 2016

I wouldn't say there is a "standard" either but what I have seen most common is for annual gifts to list the cash received. So someone in a 5 year pledge at $1,000 a year is listed in the $1,000 category for all 5 years (assuming they pay on time each year). For a campaign however, it is more common to list full pledges and list donors to the campaign every year the campaign is running. So someone who gives or pledges in the first year is listed every year at that level, etc. A campaign donor list will presumbably grow every year.

Hope you find this helpful.

Nicole S · February 2016

That's pretty much been my typical list as well, but I'm working with someone who is wanting to list pledges and not payments. And of course everyone seems to be making their donors list their own special snowflake way.

Tevis O'Mahony · February 2016

We do not recognize grants in the Annual Report of Gifts as they are not a donation. Grants are under the purview of Finance and are counted there. The Annual Report of Gifts covers individuals and organizations who have made donations to our organization only. A grant is not a donation - many need to be applied for and other criteria. Hope this helps!

The Annual Report of Gifts does not account for everything - Donations and Finance are two different species, with different numbers.

Grant recognition in Annual Reports

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