Sarah's Shortcuts: Giving Credit Where Credit's Due

When two become one, it might be sufficient to credit their gifts to one record. However, you may also find it's beneficial to keep track of donations from constituent couples (had to squeeze alliteration in somewhere ) on both of their records so you can easily identify their gift history, regardless of whose record you're viewing.

If the latter approach floats your boat, be sure to make the most of RE's ability to automate the process of generating soft credits. As long as both spouses have constituent records, you can take the following steps to set soft credits in motion:

1. Open the constituent record of the spouse who is hard credited for gifts.
2. Click the Spouse button on the Bio 1 tab to open the spouse's relationship record.
3. On the General 2 tab, mark the Automatically soft credit this individual for gifts checkbox.

Note: This will create soft credits for new gifts that are added going forward, rather than gifts that may already be on the first spouse's record. If you need to, you can manually add soft credits for the existing gifts.

Similarly, if you receive gifts from an organization that originated from an employee (e.g., matching gifts), consider setting your business rules to soft credit the employee:

1. In Configuration, click Business Rules.
2. Under Gift options, highlight Activity options and mark the Automatically apply soft credit to matching gift pledge checkbox.

Once soft credits are configured on the records, you can adjust your soft credit options in Query, Reports, and Mail to include or exclude soft credits as needed. For more info, check out How to use soft credits (BB152), which also includes an article from Peg Strodtbeck of Wheeler Mission Ministries on "Adventures in Soft Crediting."