Best way to collect annual dues via RE and/or RENXT (without membership module)

Dana Smith

Hi all.

One of our execs is the head of a nonprofit consortium and has to collect annual dues. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do that via RE and/or RENXT. Given that it is one amount, I think making it an event and using the event registration form might work best, but I would love to get input/ideas from others, in case I am way off base and there is a better way of doing this. I am still very much learning the ins and outs of Raiser's Edge and know that I don't know a whole lot!

Thanks in advance!
Dana

EDIT:
It is related to your organization, in that the consortium is comprised of the other county mental health in our state, so most of them already are in our system.

Shockingly, ? as I asked more questions, it turns out this isn't for dues but for registration for a semi-annual meeting. So I've set it up as an event.

Thank you everyone who responded!

Alex Wong

@Dana Smith
there's no reason to use event registration for this. You are collecting donation that goes toward their membership annual dues, the right path would be to use a donation form.

If you setup your “membership" as appeal, you can have the donation form coded to have gift directly goes into that appeal.

JoAnn Strommen

@Dana Smith I think you have a good option with event reg.
if the dues are a donation or not depends on benefits/what is received. We have athletic club memberships where a membership/dues provide preferential seating as well as other options at different levels. Per IRS, this is not a donation. I process these as event reg with $0 gift amount.
You can check IRS pubs 526 and 1771 for more info on memberships/dues. I'm on my way out the door to a meeting but can possibly provide more documentation later. Perhaps others can share their opinion too.

Adrian Pitts

@Dana Smith You might can use a donation form and set up as a recurring annual donation for whatever Month and day it needs to process. In RE you can setup the month & date to process, for example (1st or 15th of July) but in NXT form, its whatever date they donor chooses to have it processed in the month chosen. This could result in many different months and dates instead of them being done in at least one month and on just two days out of the month.

Karen Diener

@Dana Smith
You started your post by saying that one of your execs is the head of a nonprofit consortium and needs to collect dues. Is the database that you are managing the one that the nonprofit consortium is using as their database of record?

The way this is phrased, it sounds like the nonprofit consortium may be a side thing for one person, and it is unclear if these dues should even be tracked in your database.

Karen