Soft Credit Guidelines

Kylee Hamilton

Hi All,


Does anyone have a Soft Credit Guideline they are willing to share?


We are currently going through the process of updating or Donor recognition walls at our Hospital sites and through this process would like to set out some guidelines for our staff adding gifts into Raiser's Edge.


I have some good ideas, but would love some input as well.


Thanks,

Kylee ?

Austen Brown

In general, we only soft credit constituents that are directly involved with the donation. i.e. spouses, business owners, DAF individual donors, etc.

Sheila Wortham

20210323_SOFT and HARD CREDITS + OTHER GIFTS.docx

Cristy Balcells

thank you! This is very very helpful

Do you have a policy for when you send a hard copy acknowledgment letter vs an email autoresponder, and a major donor policy? We are struggling to make sense of how to best handle this given that some people make frequent donations over the course of the year, so a hard copy letter is costly and seems repetitive, but on the other hand, an email just isn't enough. Thank you in advance!

Austen Brown

Hi Cristy Balcells‍ - At my current org, if a donor makes a gift through one of our online donation forms their email confirmation doubles as an acknowledgement letter, all other donations are sent a hard copy acknowledgement letter. Concerning repetitive donors, you could reach out and inquire if they would like to receive a consolidated acknowledgement at the end of each year, versus getting a letter each time they give.

Cristy Balcells

Do you mind sharing - how do you notify the solicitor? We have so many soft credits and not sure how to let people know a gift was made on their behalf.

Heather MacKenzie

Businesses always soft credit their owners, DAF's soft credit to their person, spouses who are both records soft credit each other, United Way soft credits to the person who gave to them, and others I can't think of at the moment.

Angela Tucker

Sheila, much appreciate you posting this!