We have recently submitted a 5-year ask to a prospect. I am wondering what the best way is to capture that as a plan in History. Also, if we are successful in securing the donation, how should I record it in Contributions? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tina
Hi Tina, would the five year gift be applied to five annual campaigns (so a payment into FY24 annual, then another to FY25 annual, etc) or is the campaign itself set up as being a multi-year campaign (like a Capital campaign)?
Hi Colleen, good question. Sorry, I wasn't specific. This ask is actually for a special project, not annual fund or a campaign.
So as long as the campaign you're using for the special project is set across the multiple years you need in the Campaign set-up, you should be able to enter the pledge in and then schedule the payments for each year. Does that make sense? In terms of capturing it in as a plan History, I would just tie put the full total pledge in as the received amount and then either put the payment breakdown in the notes or attach a document of the breakdown as a step.
So if we get the commitment, I should enter pledges for all five years under campaigns that are set up in the different FYs. Is that what you are suggesting?
If each campaign is meant to inhabit one fiscal year you could do that, but if this one special project is meant to encompass multiple FYs I would set it up in the Campaign section to run across the multiple FYs. For example, we have a Staging the Future campaign happening and Phase 2 of it began in August 2022 and will end in July 2026, so we've set it up like that with the Start Date and End Date:
If someone makes a pledge of, say, $50,000 to the campaign to be paid out across 5 years, I'd enter the pledge for this Campaign and create a schedule showing them paying $10k this year, $10k next year, and so on.
If this special project can't be spread across multiple FYs, then my recommendation would be to create a campaign for each FY of the project (FY24 Project, FY25 Project, etc) and then when the donor makes a payment put it into the correct FY campaign as its own payment.
Thank you very much for all your suggestions. We will discuss in house and see which way we want to enter the gift (hopefully we will get the gift).