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Giving Societies - Do You Count Gifts-in-Kind? Matching Gifts? Pledges?

Tom Klimchak

Just curious what types of gifts you count in your Lifetime Giving Societies (for those of you who have giving societies)…

We currently count all cash (gifts and payments) received (hard and soft credit). Including Gifts-in-Kind as well as Matching Gift credits.

I've seen some universities count PLEDGES if they are still open. Others count Planned Gifts in their lifetime total.

We've seen some talk about excluding Gifts-in-Kind and Matching Gift credit from lifetime totals…

Just want to hear some other options with calculating lifetime giving. Thanks!

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Comments

Adam Dunigan

We count all cash received (outright gifts, pledge payments, recurring gifts), plus any soft credits a donor receives (matching gifts, spousal giving, DAFs, etc.), plus gifts-in-kind. We do not consider open pledges at all.

We calculate total planned gift commitments separately, and then we will place the donor in the society that corresponds to the higher of the two totals. The society levels are segmented differently for cash giving than planned giving.

I've attached a screenshot of our societies and their giving levels, so you can see what I'm talking about. Hope this helps!

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Larry Wheeler

I am putting together a donor list for our last campaign and was requested to use all gift types, Soft Credits, MG, Pledge Balances, and Planned Gifts.

Barbara Kunkel

We include cash gifts, soft credits, pledges, planned gifts. We do not include Gift-in-kind and pledge payments.

Tom Klimchak

Interesting… thank you! I'm going to play devil's advocate here ?.. For those of you who do NOT count Gifts-in-Kind in overall giving totals… why not?

For us any Gifts-in-Kind with a value of $5,000 or more require an independent evaluation/audit and a letter from the head of the accepting department confirming that the GIK is needed and will be used by our school.

Here's our general reason for counting GIK: Let's say we're looking to buy a new truck for $40,000. A local car dealership GIVES us a new truck worth exactly $40,000. That Gift-in-Kind (the truck) essentially puts $40,000 back into our budget to be spent on other things… We would generally want to honor and recognize that car dealership at the $40,000 donor recognition level.

I'm not worried about receipting or real value in this case… just recognition/lifetime giving level…

Dariel Dixon

Tom Klimchak:
Interesting… thank you! I'm going to play devil's advocate here ?.. For those of you who do NOT count Gifts-in-Kind in overall giving totals… why not?
For us any Gifts-in-Kind with a value of $5,000 or more require an independent evaluation/audit and a letter from the head of the accepting department confirming that the GIK is needed and will be used by our school.
Here's our general reason for counting GIK: Let's say we're looking to buy a new truck for $40,000. A local car dealership GIVES us a new truck worth exactly $40,000. That Gift-in-Kind (the truck) essentially puts $40,000 back into our budget to be spent on other things… We would generally want to honor and recognize that car dealership at the $40,000 donor recognition level.
I'm not worried about receipting or real value in this case… just recognition/lifetime giving level…

I think an argument can be made either way @Tom Klimchak. I think the biggest issue is value. For a property like a vehicle that has a clear sticker price or an MSRP, the value is simple. For something like artwork or something with a more fluid valuation, it becomes different, even after an appraisal. I think it can go either way, which is why it needs to be documented. I think for giving societies, it should state if non-cash gifts are accepted or not (stocks and the like withstanding).

In an ideal world, you would put a minimum amount needed for cash gifts. For instance, if the giving society started at $50K, then let's say at least $10K needs to be in cash or investments that can be immediately liquidated. That's in my ideal world, mind you.

Faith Murray

I think the nuance with pledges and planned gifts has to do with whether they are revocable, documented, and what your organization's standard fulfillment rate tends to be.

We usually have more than 95% of pledges fulfilled, and certainly all the big pledges, even though we don't require legally binding pledge contracts. Our auditors tell us that is an exceptional success rate. When considering whether to include non-binding pledges in a lifetime total for a giving society, ask yourself what you would do if the donor failed to follow through. Would you quietly take his/her name off the donor rolls? Would you leave the name on, in the hopes of maintaining the relationship and cultivating a future commitment?

This is especially true with planned gifts. Our Planned Giving consultant repeatedly reminds us that only something like 20% of people keep their will beneficiaries the same over the span of their lives. Wills get changed every 5-10 years at least, and most of the time the nonprofit is ignorant of the change. Only if a bequest exists in the form of an irrevocable annuity or trust is the income and amount guaranteed.

We do include stock in lifetime giving, treated the same as cash, but that is because our stock policies involve selling the stock immediately upon receipt. By the time the stock makes it to our Development department for posting in RE, the stock has already been sold and its cash value realized. I'm not sure you would want to include stock in giving totals if your nonprofit retains the stock indefinitely.

We do also include GIK's in our totals, but again that is because of Tom's reasoning: in the case of any significant gift that would matter for society levels, the gift has made a known benefit to our bottom line, and/or it has been evaluated by an independent assessor.

The purpose of Giving Society levels is not to act as a legal tax receipt, but to build relationships for future gift cultivation. If a donated painting values at $10K by an independent assessor, but only at $7k when your org auctions it, what does that really matter? Your donor has still made a generous gesture of support, and by recognizing that support, you open the door for future gifts.

Liz Hinkle

What report or export do you use to get the data?

JoAnn Strommen

My suggestion is Analytical Reports>Donor Category Report. You can select your dates, gifts, funds etc. Before using the report, you will want to go to Config > Tables and put in your different giving society details/levels.

When running the report, on the Format tab > Detail you can select your donor category table and can run for all or selected categories.

You can view a sample report by clicking link at the bottom of the page after you select Donor Category Report.

Janis Worley

Gifts-in-Kind are difficult because it is so hard to verify the real value. Because of that, we don't want to get in the middle between a donor and the IRS so we accept the gift but do not include it in lifetime giving calculations, and we only acknowledge the gift, we do not include the donor's claimed value in our letters.