How should we receive money for FEES rather than donations

Sarah Augenstein

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for how our non-profit could receive fees from our program participants. We obviously use RENXT to receive donations - but what is best practice for receiving fees? (In our case it could almost be classified as 'rent' because we have housing programs for low-income population and right now they are paying by check and cash).


We have thought about practically how it would work in RE system - We can separate the 'gifts' using a different campaign, appeal, gift attribute and even constituent code....but is it advisable to have both donors and program participants in the same database. My colleague thinks our data will get muddied when it comes to reporting with always having to section it off. If it isn't advisable how would you recommend us doing it? Use another payment service? TIA

Elaine Tucker

We add our program participants to our database, with the cons code of "program Participant", the fees that they pay go into their own fund, campaign and appeal. The fund category is "other income" (as opposed to donation on all our other funds). I think it's VERY important to have your program participants in the database - this way you can know how many of XYZ you have, and you can report back on what the actual "rent" income is.