Recording Individuals and Foundations / Soft Credits

Kimberly Sawicki
Kimberly Sawicki
Fifth Anniversary
in Blackbaud CRM™ General Discussions
Hello, 


My organization has struggled for years with the best way to record gifts from individuals through a company or family foundation. I know the AHP standards manual recommends recording a gift from the institution from which it came, but then soft credit to the appropriate individual. We run into so many issues doing it this way where the individual or donor does not come up in reports correctly. In some instances we know the donor himself/herself wants to be listed, and in other cases, he/she wants their family foundation to be listed. Same with companies -- we have a board member who sometimes donates through his company, but not always -- we need to be sure we capture all of his giving when running reports.


Looking for any and all advice on this.


thanks,

Kim

Comments

  • Patti Hommes
    Patti Hommes Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 PowerUp Challenge: Standard Reports+ PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management
    I have always used the "Who is this gift really from?" approach and put the gift in the individual's record and soft credit the company or foundation. We have an attribute for Donor Listing where we record how they want to be listed. And thanks to Bill Connors‍ we added an attribute of "Name on Check" so we know where the check came from. Hope that helps a little!
  • Liz Hackett
    Liz Hackett
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 3 Blackbaud CRM Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge Name Dropper
    Hi Kimberly Sawicki‍ 

    We used the opposite tactic of what Patti Hommes‍ suggested, just to be confusing!  But it mostly has to do with the requirements on our receipts in Australia.  Many donors prefer to have their foundation/company as the name on the receipt, so the revenue is added to the Organisation record and soft credit for the Individual record.


    You can set up auto recognition credits using the Relationship area, so that if someone has a particular relationship with a particular organisation, then it will automatically set up the recognition credits - from then on!  It doesn't do this historically, which is unfortunate, but it's functionality which can be very useful and time saving.
  • Brennan Hadden
    Brennan Hadden
    Tenth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1 Loyalty Badge
    Hi,


    This is a reporting issue and how you manage the recognition credit types.  You should always put the gift on the legal donor (the entity signing the check).  If you then use your recognition credit types, you will have a number of options.  You could use a recognition credit type to identify the person who should appear on the report.  At SMU, we have something we call giving unit.  This is the recognized donor with the closest relations to the SMU.  We have a nightly process identifies the constituent and we can override it if needed.  This always receipt process to use the legal donor and reporting to have one person for each split for campaign type totals.


    Hope this is helpful.


    Brennan
  • Frank Dean
    Frank Dean
    Tenth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1
    Definitely a difficult reporting problem...


    At Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation we follow closely to what Brennan from SMU describes. We record the gift to the entity that is regarded by the tax authority (for us, the IRS) as the donor and then issue recognition credits of the type "Donor - " (Donor - Spouse, Donor - Owns Company, etc.). We also issue other types of recognition credits, like "Solicitor", so, when we report on donors, we only consider the "Donor" recognition credit types.


    One wrinkle --- for DAFs we record the gift on a special constituent. For example, The Smith Family Fund of the {actual foundation}. Then we issue "Donor" credits to the actual foundation and to the original donor(s) who funded the DAF.


    Hope this helps!


    Frank

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