Donor commitments in Fundraising and Engagement

Donor commitments (often called pledges) are agreements by donors to make gifts to your organization. Each pledge has a donor commitment record to store the details, such as donor information, pledge amount, and transactions that fulfill the pledge.

Note

Donor promises to make multiple donations on a schedule are stored in Payment Schedules.

To work with donor commitment records, follow these steps:

1. In the navigation pane, select Gifts from the Change area menu.
2. Under Gift Processing, select Donor Commitments.
3. The default view opens and displays existing records. If needed, switch to a different view.

Add a new donor commitment

To record a new pledge from a donor to make a single donation, create a new donor commitment record as follows:

1. In the navigation pane, select Gifts from the Change area menu.

2. Under Gift Processing, select Donor Commitments.

3. On the action pane, select New.

4. A new record opens and displays the Single Donation Form tab. Complete the following sections:

   

   #	Area
   1	Pledge Entry
   2	Contact Address
   3	Pledge Details
   4	Fundraising Attributes
   5	Process

Pledge Entry

#	Field	Description
1	Donor	The related contact or organization giving the gift.
2	Amount	The total amount committed.
3	Channel	The channel through which the gift was received: Phone: Indicates that the gift was received over the phone. Mail: Indicates that the gift was received by mail. In Person: Indicates that the gift was received in person. Online: Indicates that the gift was received online (for example, third-party website or e-transfer). Social: Indicates that the gift was received via social media campaigns.
4	Book Date	The date defaults to today’s date, however, it can be changed to either a post-dated donation (a donation yet to occur) or a previous date.
5	Originating Campaign	The campaign or event that the gift is related to.
6	Primary Designation	The designation contains the information needed to track both expected and received revenue.

Contact Address

This section fills in automatically when you select a Donor in the Pledge Entry section.

Pledge Details

#	Field	Description
1	Currency	The currency in which the donation was received.
2	Anonymous	Indicates whether the contact wants to be listed in any marketing materials for this particular donation.

Fundraising Attributes

#	Field	Description
1	Appeal	The appeal this gift record is related to.
2	Package	The package this gift record is related to.
3	Solicitor	A lookup field to identify the individual credited with obtaining the gift.
4	Related Constituent	A lookup field to identify the contact/constituent related to the gift. For example, an organization may be the donor and the related constituent is the individual associated with the organization’s gift.

Process

Select Process to begin accepting payments from the donor. The Linked Transactions section appears.

Note

If you save the new record, Linked Transactions also appears.

To accept a partial payment, select New Transaction in the Linked Transactions section.

Note

Before you can process a transaction, a configuration record must be completed to activate various processes necessary to complete credit card transactions, donations and integrations. The details of the configuration record may make some features described above unavailable. For more information, go to Configurations: Primary Configuration Record.

Accept a payment for an existing donor commitment

You can accept a partial payment or full payment for an active donor commitment.

1. In the navigation pane, select Gifts from the Change area menu.

2. Under Gift Processing, select Donor Commitments.

3. The default view opens and displays existing records. If needed, switch to a different view.

   

4. In the view, find the donor commitment record, and then select the link in the Identifier column.

5. When the record opens, in the Linked Transactions section, do one of the following:

   • To accept a partial payment, select New Transaction.
   • To accept payment for the full Remaining Balance, select Convert to Donation.

   

6. In the transaction record that opens, under Gift Entry, select the correct Gift Type. If you're accepting a partial payment, adjust the value of Amount accordingly.

7. Change any other fields as needed, then select Process.

8. When the transaction completes, you can save and close the transaction record. Or, to return to the donor commitment record, select the link just above Linked Pledge at the top right.

Print a Thank You letter

Note

Before you can print a Thank You letter, you need an activated Word template. For information about how to build and activate templates, see Generate receipts and thank you letters.

1. In the navigation pane, select Gifts from the Change area menu.

2. Under Gift Processing, select Donor Commitments.

3. The default view opens and displays existing records. If needed, switch to a different view.

   

4. In the view, find the donor commitment record, and then select the link in the Identifier column.

5. When the record opens, select Print Thank You on the action pane.

   Note

   Depending on your role and the configuration record you're using, the Print Thank You command might not be available.

Write off a donor commitment

When a donor is unable to fulfill a donor commitment, you can write it off, rather than deactivating or deleting the record. This lets you track the donor’s activity more accurately, and balance the account.

1. In the navigation pane, select Gifts from the Change area menu.

2. Under Gift Processing, select Donor Commitments.

3. The default view opens and displays existing records. If needed, switch to a different view.

   

4. In the view, find the donor commitment record, and then select the link in the Identifier column.

5. When the record opens, select Write Off on the action pane.

6. Confirm the amount of the write-off, then select COMPLETE. To cancel, select CLOSE instead.

7. When the confirmation message appears, select CLOSE.

8. The donor commitment's Remaining Balance changes to $0.00, and the status reason changes to Write Off.

See Also

Gifts overview Contacts in Fundraising and Engagement Transactions in Fundraising and Engagement Payment schedules in Fundraising and Engagement