What do you consider a gift when reporting on gifts?

Cindy Filler
Cindy Filler
Seventh Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
When reporting on gifts, what do you count??   We differentiate our commitments (cash plus pledges and planned gifts) vs cash gifts (cash plus payments on pledges and planned gifts) but are trying to determine what to include beyond that such as event registrations, memberships, sponsorships, etc.  Do you differentiate between charitable and non charitable?  How about gifts that include a benefit?


In general, we'd love to hear about how others count gifts and does it differ depending on the type of reporting (maybe internal reporting vs campaign reporting).  I'm not looking for what is included on a gift report, for example, but what would you report for a dollar total for a year.


Thanks!

Comments

  • Christine Adams
    Christine Adams
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
    For our Progress Report of activity to-date:


    We count:


    Cash gifts received in FY20 (only tax-deductible portion)

    Pledge Payments - only those that the pledge was received in FY20 as well

    We don't count:

    Planned Gift Intentions

    Realized Bequests

    Non Tax-Deductible gifts

    Pledge Payments on prior year pledges

    Gift In-Kinds

    Public Grants


    For a total for Finance of what has come in we do include realized bequests and pledge payments on prior year pledges

     
  • Alyson Watts
    Alyson Watts
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    I guess it depends on the purpose of the report. If you want to recognize participation, like a full board or parent participation report, I might include all gifts regardless of whether they were fully or partially tax deductible (like event registrations). If the recognition list is for e.g. annual report, I might have separate lists for donations (tax-deductible) and event 'gifts' (registrations) - as well as separate lists for tributes and planned gifts and GIKs etc. If looking at total revenue, e.g. progress against budget/goal, I'd include all transactions/gifts except straight fee-for-service, pass throughs, merch purchases, etc. If looking for NET revenue from a special event, though, exclude the direct benefit amount of gifts and/or expenses. If it's a statement for donors, obviously only receipt amount / tax deductible amount of gifts (less benefit) should be counted.It's probably important to consider what's done in the past too, if your reports are comparative to prior years, especially for total revenue.
  • Isaac Shalev
    Isaac Shalev
    Fifth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1
    I'll echo Allyson - if your org gets revenue, there's always going to be someone who wants to look at that revenue. So it's a matter of making sure the person who wants the report is getting what they want. At a policy level, there may be specific rules in place that reports need to respond to.


    Typically, Finance needs to both prepare the books and returns as per GAAP and the IRS, and also provide insight into P&L and cash forecasting. For the IRS, they will only count cash received, pledges/planned gifts, and GIKs with known valuations as revenue. Those items go on the books. But they might also use a deferred revenue account to track money you expect to receive, but which doesn't go on your books until it arrives, like recurring gifts. They'll also need to track materially restricted vs unrestricted funds.

    Development will typically want to track fundraising and donor engagement, and evaluate the success of gift officers and fundraising strategies. Fundraising will count cash and pledges made in the fiscal, as well as more contingent gifts like recurring gifts and bequest intentions (for certain ages of donors), but not in-kind gifts. Payments on pledges represent success in a previous year, so those arent usually counted (and if they are, then you shouldn't count the whole pledge amount in the year it was received, or you're double-counting). 


    Generally speaking, non-charitable contributions like event registrations or the non-deductible portion of a quid-pro-quo is most relevant for event profit-and-loss, and doesn't reflect the performance of development. However, if you have an event-heavy strategy that may not be the case. But annual goals typically exclude this kind of revenue.


     
  • Cindy Filler
    Cindy Filler
    Seventh Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1
    I want to thank those who have answered this.  I'm not going to mark it answered or best answer because I don't know that there is best answer!  This is more of a discussion point we are having and I'm looking to see what others do.  I appreciate all of your input!

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