DAF Intentions -- how are you tracking?

Allan Delmare · May 18

Does NXT provide a way to track DAF intentions?

Since a donor cannot use a DAF to make a payment towards a pledge, is there another way to track "intentions" (it is not legally a pledge, but they have verbalized their intent to donate x dollars over time and intend to make payments via DAF)?

We want to be able to note that the donor has this intention and track it for the purpose of campaign reporting … but we need to be able to put them into the system so that they're not showing up with other commitments and being counted like a normal pledge would.

Any official way to do this? If no official way, any workarounds y'all have come up with for sanity?

Tatyana Leifman · May 18

Can you use opportunities? There is a field there of Gift Type that can be defined as "DAF" or something similar?

Allan Delmare · May 18

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/313902#Comment_313902

Hmmm. Interesting to consider. Don't love it, but better than anything else I've considered. Thanks for your input. Curious to see if anyone else has taken this (or any other) approach in practice.

Allan Delmare · May 18

Okay for anyone else looking, one way that has been suggested is to enter it as a pledge but use a gift subtype of 'non-binding intent' on the pledge — which essentially tags it as a pledge "in name only." … then you just need to be careful/mindful during reporting and auditing to handle any pledges with "non binding intent" as special cases which are distinctly not actual pledges.

Tatyana Leifman · May 18

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/313904#Comment_313904

That works but if one's RE is integrated with FE, the gift subtype might have to be mapped to the GL too otherwise a pledge payment will get pushed without a pledge already in the system to match it to. Or the gift from the DAF will have to be entered as cash gift and the pledge zeroed out with a note that it was fulfilled.

Christina Mohler · May 18

I have used gift subtype for doing this and have found it to be an easy way to separate out these types of pledges. Yes, you do have to keep in mind the post/not post field if you are connected to FE or exporting to another GL system. And, yes, you do have to exclude those gifts at times depending on the reporting.

I'm curious what kind of reporting that you need where you wouldn't be able to exclude with a gift subtype query/filter. Do you have a specific example?

Allan Delmare · May 18

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/313906#Comment_313906

Nope - subtype works perfectly! It gets a little complicated, but I've got it sorted out.

if pledge subtype = normal, then count pledge as commitment and exclude pledge payments from commitment report.

if pledge subtype = non-binding intent, then count pledge payment as commitment, and exclude the pledge from commitment report.

Example of a normal pledge:

Example of pledge where 'gift subtype= non-binding intent' :

Carlene Johnson · May 18

I discussed this at length in a comment on another post. Check it out here to see if it is helpful!

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/308677#Comment_308677

Amber Salvage · May 19

Our finance department doesn't count pledges as revenue, they are already considered non-binding because they are conditional pledges. Also any pledges under a certain amount are not posted to the Financial system. Really the only exception are foundation and corporate grants that are awarded and have a proposal budget.

Lori Hill · May 22

This is what I was taught and how our organization views these types of pledges.

From a legal standpoint, donor-advised funds can't be applied against pledges that are considered legally binding and enforceable based on certain stipulations (e.g. a naming opportunity, part of a matching gift campaign, a pledge specifically designated as a means to pay down a loan for the campaign). If our pledges aren't legally binding with contractual obligations, then we can track the income in Raiser's Edge, even if the donor indicates their intent to recommend grants for payment.

The only other stipulation I was told is that the pledge needs to be tracked on the individual and not assigned to the DAF organization, because ultimately the donor is pledging to cover that commitment with either personal payments, stock, a recommended DAF grant(s), or a combination of any of these. The donor has made the commitment, not the granting organization. If, over the course of the campaign the donor doesn't meet their commitment, their pledge will be written off at the end of the campaign.

The one exception, if the donor indicates that they will ONLY pay via donor-advised fund, we ask them to fill out a gift intent. That way we can informally track the "pledge income" in our campaign income projections, but we don't record the pledge in Raiser's Edge or book it as a pledge receivable with Finance.

Michele Mandala · May 22

Our Finance department has a separate fund for bookable pledges, so they are coded accordingly. For verbal commitments, we code the pledge as we would the payment, but mark it as "Do Not Post".

Sarai Hoffman · May 22

What I've been doing for many years (and on many platforms including RE) is, I create an opportunity stage that is "verbal pledge" (or you could call it "stated intention" or some such. Put it on the donor's, not the DAF's record. When the gift comes in from the DAF, you'll add that donor as a soft credit and then close/clean up the opportunity.

Meredith Friedman · May 22

We don't consider any pledges to be "binding" and they don't hit our financial records unless the funds are received.

Katherine Donovan · May 26

Our pledges aren't binding, so we enter them on the Advancement/Development side but finance doesn't count pledges as income. I track DAF gifts with a gift attribute/custom field. My attribute/custom field is gift details with a drop down table of the different bank/gift origin (ie Fidelity, Merril Lynch, etc) and then the comment is the name of the family fund specifically.

I hope this helps!

DAF Intentions -- how are you tracking?

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