Best Practices of DAF Tracking and Soft Credits.

For DAFs we determined it was important to soft-credit and to be able to report the funds from a particular DAF – we do not establish personal funds within the DAF.  Instead we have the umbrella group – so Fidelity would be one record as would Jewish Communal Fund.   If you were to report to the DAF or others what was posted the soft credit to the advising donor would pretty much detail the personal fund.

For Creditee types we do have a DAF w/Membership and DAF w/no membership    -- this allows for assignment of membership though of course if membership all G&S must be declined.

The DAFs use the same fund codes/GL accounts that used otherwise there is no problem in Finance.

Since DAF checks cannot be used to pay off pledges the use of soft credit would also be advised.   The temptation to enter a pledge in the donor’s record that will be paid off via DAF check can be pretty tempting if you post everything in the individual.   

Whatever you set up keep reporting in mind.   If a DAF requests an audit to assure their money is being used as intended andf you do not use soft credit you’ll need another way to determine this.  In an earlier thread another site noted they had been audited by a DAF.. 

DAFs typically do not combine multiple individuals on the same check  so I don’t think this will be a concern.  However,  the crediting for multiples would act much like the posting of a matching gift check that does soft credit many individuals.

We're moving to tracking our Donor Advised Funds as separate accounts and I'm wondering how many other organizations do this? 

If you do, would you create a separate account for every DAF of Fidelity Investments for example or would you put every gift under one Fidelity record soft credited to each household/individual?

On the same line of thinking in terms of creditee types we're thinking "Foundation", "Corporation", and "DAF" Any other creditee types anyone else uses? 

And finally would you ever soft credit more than one individual for the same gift? 

Thank you!!! 

-Marta

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For DAFs we determined it was important to soft-credit and to be able to report the funds from a particular DAF – we do not establish personal funds within the DAF.  Instead we have the umbrella group – so Fidelity would be one record as would Jewish Communal Fund.   If you were to report to the DAF or others what was posted the soft credit to the advising donor would pretty much detail the personal fund.

For Creditee types we do have a DAF w/Membership and DAF w/no membership    -- this allows for assignment of membership though of course if membership all G&S must be declined.

The DAFs use the same fund codes/GL accounts that used otherwise there is no problem in Finance.

Since DAF checks cannot be used to pay off pledges the use of soft credit would also be advised.   The temptation to enter a pledge in the donor’s record that will be paid off via DAF check can be pretty tempting if you post everything in the individual.   

Whatever you set up keep reporting in mind.   If a DAF requests an audit to assure their money is being used as intended andf you do not use soft credit you’ll need another way to determine this.  In an earlier thread another site noted they had been audited by a DAF.. 

DAFs typically do not combine multiple individuals on the same check  so I don’t think this will be a concern.  However,  the crediting for multiples would act much like the posting of a matching gift check that does soft credit many individuals.

We're moving to tracking our Donor Advised Funds as separate accounts and I'm wondering how many other organizations do this? 

If you do, would you create a separate account for every DAF of Fidelity Investments for example or would you put every gift under one Fidelity record soft credited to each household/individual?

On the same line of thinking in terms of creditee types we're thinking "Foundation", "Corporation", and "DAF" Any other creditee types anyone else uses? 

And finally would you ever soft credit more than one individual for the same gift? 

Thank you!!! 

-Marta

This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!