Happy Monday!
We are in the earliest of stage of thinking about a Capital Campaign and I'm nearing the point where I need to start thinking about set-up in Tessitura. I was hoping for some feedback from you on best practices.
Right now, we are going back and forth as to whether to set up one large multi-year campaign (which is cleaner, but presents a problem when trying to pull information based on fiscal year) or setting up separate campaigns based on fiscal year (which clogs up accounts with many pledges/gifts, but is easier to manage when pulling information).
I see clear pros and cons to both and I just wanted to get your thoughts.
Thank you so much!
Heather
Hi Heather,
We have done both ways and it really depends on how your finance department wants to track pledges/receivables. I presented at the 2018 TLCC on entering Complex Pledges in a session titled Multi-Year and Other Complex Pledges - Gifts That Keep on Giving, and I mentioned then, what works for one org. might not work for another. Here are some of my organization's experiences.
Some years ago we had a Major Campaign in which we entered one pledge with a payment schedule over a number a years. It became a challenge for us, as this did not always work nicely with how our finance department looked at receivables. I often had to pull reports with posting dates to determine what fiscal year payments were received.
Following payments and billing donors sometimes were an issue, partly because donors were vague about when they planned to pay; it wasn’t as easy to see at a glance what fiscal year a payment should be made. Then there were donors who paid with their IF or with matching funds, so portions of the pledge were adjusted from the larger pledge creating additional gifts anyway that were soft credited to the donor.
Although we don’t have an official campaign, we do have donors pledging money to our Endowment over several years. Now we enter divide the pledge and enter a portion for each fiscal year. Although it creates a number of pledges, and there are still donors who give with Ifs and matches, for us it much easier to follow the money and know exactly what is due each year, which helps with forecasting revenue. Reports and other things align better with our finance department’s way of accounting by doing this scenario.
Hope this helps.
Best,
T.C.
PSO
I would agree with T.C. that you should consult with your Finance team and how they want to track it. All organizations do things a little bit differently.
At the Kennedy Center, we set up separate campaigns based on fiscal year. The initial pledge was booked in the current fiscal year that we were in. If a donor wished to pay in installments over multiple years, they could definitely do that. Rather than booking a pledge for each fiscal year, we just created payment due dates for as long as it would take them to pay (majority of the larger gifts were over five years).
If the payment came from a Foundation on behalf of the donor for example, we will adjust out one payment of the pledge, book a new pledge in the Foundation record, credit the individual, choose the initial campaign that it was booked in, change the date, and then pay off the pledge.
Let me know if you have any further questions or if I can clarify on anything!
Mary
I loved the panel at TLCC18. It really helped with our multiyear Capital Campaign set up. Here is the slide deck.
https://www.tessituranetwork.com/Passthrough?itemUri=/tlcc/2018/Pres/02_26_Complex_Pledges.pptm