Using RE, we set up Appeals in advance and assign pledge amounts to a group of constituents. However, in many cases due to costs, exchange fluctuations (among others reasons) it becomes necessary to adjust the pledge amounts after this initial process. I understand that I can retrieve all gifts by calling up a particular appeal from the 'Records' section but to make the required changes staff would need to open up each gift separately to make these changes, a process that is considered to be very time consuming.

Is there any way that I can do this update in a 'grid' format so that I can do the required pledge updates for an appeal on one screen without having to individually open up each gift?

Wow, I would never be allowed to enter a pledge on anyone's account without signed documentation from the actual donor. That is not a good business practice in my opinion. Does your financial office and auditors know you do this? Once a pledge is made it is revenue on the date the pledge was entered and you need to manage that properly - any lowering of that amount by writing off or adjusting will show up as BAD DEBT when you do an audit so I would not suggest running your business this way. This will change your bad debt ratio in your audit that your business may be applying or receiving credit on (if your business has any loans, company credit cards, etc.)

In my opinion, you'd be wise to wait until you know the actual amounts and use the Batch functionality to put in the actual pledge if all the information will be the same (Campaign, Fund, Appeal, Package, Pledge payment Schedule) and you want a shortcut from doing gift entry from the actual constituent record. I think you've created more work for yourself by doing it the way you're currently doing it. After a gift is created, you would have to do an individual adjustment unless you wanted to globally write the gifts off - but you would need to have a logical query in order to do that. I wouldn't suggest changing pledged amounts without a record of what the changes are.

I just noticed that you're in Canada - so you may get to scrap what i said - I'm not sure what the laws are there.

Thanks Laurel, I probably should have mentioned that I’m considering using RE’s pledge functionality to track participants in trips. Each participant is required to raise X amount of dollars before going on the trip. It is this amount that can possibly fluctuate. Participants are told of this scenario. That all being said, I’ll take your advice and ensure that this won’t cause any other issues. Using the pledge functionality I am able to track total amount needed, total amount raised to date (applied to the pledges) and total amount still outstanding, all required info for reporting needs.

Interesting use of Pledges. Do you have any logical criteria driving the 'fee' or pledge amount? Is there a way you can work on a specific subset using attributes or something that would be static to help you query on these folks? Do the same people get a 'discount' annually or anything? Are they a special constituency code?

Is there a round number that you can give us so we can help you figure out how time consuming it would be to adjust those pledges? (I would think doubleclicking on the pledge from a gift query and doing the adjustment would be pretty easy, but if you had 10,000 to do it would be cumbersome)

Also, you may have already thought of this - when you put in the pledge schedule I would suggest using 1 scheduled payment and near your drop dead date so no pledge reminders would be generated to these folks with your normal pledge reminders until then.

I immediately thought of the event module and how the "athon's" work - Have you looked into using it? I was wondering if these 'trips' were goods and services that had no donative quantity to them and how you're breaking them out from donations and receipting so that the benefits to the folks paying are managed properly.(Not sure how it works in Canada but here you legally have to give the amount and description of any goods or services(benefits) received in exchange for money given to your organization on the receipt)

 

Hi Rolf,

Have you considered doing an import through Administration? If you have a way to group these records this task could be done fairly quickly through Excel. In administration create a gift import and use the "create import" option to get your gifts needing updates (using a query) to Excel. Once in Excel you can change your amounts and use the "update existing records" feature to bring in the correct gift amounts, etc. As always with administration backup your database before importing.

 

We also do not put pledges in without agreement of payment.  I may not get what your end goal is, but was wondering if you've considered just using your trip participants as 'solicitors.'  The amount they need to raise could be their goal.  Pledges/gifts would only be recorded as received with credit for gift going to trip participant/solicitor.  Reports using "solicitor analysis (detail)" will show each solicitors progress toward goal and amount received from each prospect/donor/constituent..  Could query report on pleges/payments, etc.

Just a thought....