Best Practices for Restricted Gift Designation

Danny Tao
Danny Tao
Fifth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
We are new to Raiser's Edge. I'm wondering how others use the combination of the various fields to designate restricted gifts. For example, we are an independent school. If someone gave money for the school to buy theater lights, how would your organization enter a specific gift designation in RE? Do you use Attributes, Reference, and/or Gift Subtype (or other fields)? Does anyone ever use the Gift Subtype field for designating gifts? 
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  • Elizabeth Perron
    Elizabeth Perron
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant
    Hi


    I have moved this forum post from to the RE Community in hopes of getting more product specific eyes & replies...and hopefully the answer you are looking for from your Community peers.


    In harmony and inclusion,

    Elizabeth

    Blackbaud Community Team
  • Dariel Dixon
    Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management
    Gift subtype is usually best served if there are going to be several gifts belonging to that category.  Unless, of course you expect a high number of theatre lights gifts.  


    If they are more like a one-off, a detailed gift reference is probably a good place.  Remember, attributes and gift subtypes are tables, whereas gift reference is basically just a text field.  It's not indexed either, so you won't be able to search for it.  If it's something you'll need to report on, then maybe an attribute.


    But honestly, where you put that information is not as important as being consistent with how the data is entered.
  • Danny Tao
    Danny Tao
    Fifth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1
    Thank you, Daniel! That's super helpful. Like you mentioned, we were thinking of creating gift designation categories where multiple similar gifts could go in the Gift Subtype field (e.g. Arts, Athletics, Facilities, STEM, etc.). Then we would put something like Theater Lights under "Arts" and we could use the Reference field to be more specific. Would that be advisable or should we be using Gift Subtype field for something different?
  • Danny Tao
    Danny Tao
    Fifth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1
    Thank you, Christine! Under Funds, does your organization create a new "Annual Fund" for each fiscal year? We were thinking of creating a new Fund each year, like "Annual Fund FY21", "Annual Fund FY22", etc. It sounds like your Annual Fund is a general bucket. When you do reports, do you just set the fiscal year dates as parameters instead of doing a report by specific "Annual Fund FY21"? 
  • Mark Stevens
    Mark Stevens
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    Danny, We use a combination of FUNDS and APPEALS to track designations of gifts. Our RE FUND numbering structure mimics our General Ledger. For example, General Fund in the Ledger is "10" based, so all General Fund giving is tracked in RE in the 100 series. 100: General Fund, 110 Memorial/In Honor of, etc.  Our Ledger Building/Capitol Improvement Fund is "50" based, so all donations restricted for Capitol Improvements (lights, security, IT, building projects) are tracked in the 500 series. 500: Building Fund "Unrestricted", 501: Asset Purchase "Restricted", 503: New Buildings, etc. The same hold true for Scholarship donations which are "60" based ... each scholarship has a unique 600 series number in RE.


    We use APPEALS to track why we received the gift. Are they "regular givers" (appeal code 001), "Matching" gifts (appeal code 004), Memorial (appeal code 005 AND a special receipt letter), etc....


    I hope this helps. I would be happy to discuss this further if you like.

    Mark ... Boise Bible College

     
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Raiser's Edge NXT Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge First Reply
    Some great replies already.  Great points about one-off gifts vs. continued use.


    Other thought/considerations:
    The Gift sub-type can be used several ways. Are you integrated with FE for accounting? If so, the sub-type field can be tied to a specific GL account just like funds are. It can also hold text table data not related to GL. But if using for GL linking, each gift can only have one gift sub-type so you couldn't record GL info and text description.


    There are campaign 'category' and fund 'type' fields as part of campaign / fund record that can also be useful. I was unaware of how these could be used. Some orgs don't need/use; for others great info source.




    While reference field is not indexed for criteria in reports, you can search for reference 'equals/contains/etc.' in queries. 

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