I am a new Tessitura user with limited background in other CRM systems. I have inherited a 12-year-old Tess database that changed Devo personnel in charge of maintenance about every three years. I am trying to streamline processes and ensure that we are using the most efficient and accurate methods of data management from here on out.
One area that has given me a lot of pause is Workplace Giving. It looks like for the past two years, the most recent coordinator at our organization would enter contributions under a Tess account for the third-party entity in charge of funds disbursement - we have constituents for "Your Cawse" and "Benefity" in Tess. Then, she would (sometimes) soft credit the actual donor from there. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because we are missing quite a lot of data - if Xiao Mei works at Newspaper X, the way the previous coordinator entered information, we have no record of Newspaper X being involved in the giving - the total amount is soft-credited to Xiao Mei.
So I know that isn't the best way to do it, but I am stuck on what is. Let's say I have a $500 cheque from "Benefity"; $250 comes from Xiao Mei (Individual - Payroll) and $250 comes from Newspaper X, her employer (Employer Match - Payroll Match). Do I enter $500 under Xiao Mei's constituent record and soft credit $250 to Newspaper X's? Do I enter $500 under Newspaper X's constituent record and soft credit $250 to Xiao Mei's? Was the old coordinator correct and the whole thing goes to Benefity with $250 soft credited to Newspaper X and Xiao Mei respectively?
Related question: Is there a way to soft credit a constituent with the "Matching Gift" designation instead of "Family" or "Miscellaneous"? And if so, how?
I am sure there is a simple solution but I have choice paralysis and the workplace giving transactions I need to enter are stacking up... Thanks for reading and I hope someone can share how they do it!
Hi Chelsea! I will say that at Olney Theatre when we get gifts through YourCause or Benevity we credit each donor (be it the individual or the company) with the amount they specifically gave and then soft credit the individual for the amount from the company. So in your example we would put $250 in Xiao Mei's account and then we would put the other $250 in the account for Newspaper X and soft credit Xiao for that $250 (so Newspaper X is credited for $250 while Xiao is credited for $500). In my view Benevity is just the vehicle, so doesn't require any credit (if it's a direct deposit I may put in the payment note that it's from Benevity). Does that help?
In terms of the Matching Gift, do you mean on the Soft Credit screen? We have Matching Gift as an option on the drop down and choose that when applicable. Are you having difficulty doing that?
We are using the disburser as a constituent record so that all contributions appear on one tab.
In this example, Benevity would have soft credits for $250 and $250.
However, there was a recent post about using the disburser as a channel. That sounds like another way to have an overview of that giving.
Oh, that's an interesting idea!