If a donor has made a $5K capital campaign pledge ($1K to be paid for the next 5 years), and this gift should be matched by his employer, how do you track the matching gift info in RE?  Do you hold off on entering a matching gift pledge until the actual payment from the donor comes in each year?  Our organization historically has recorded matching gift pledges at the time a donor makes a pledge, not when the pledge payment comes in.  I think we will need to enter the $1K match only once the donor's payment has been made each year but I'm curious how other orgs handle this as well. Thanks!

We do not enter matching gift pledges over multiple years and if we have never received a matching gift from a company we don't enter a MG pledge at all until the actual money comes in because many matching gift companies have strict guiidelines and the submission may be rejected or the donor may have already used their alloted match amount.

We usually in the instance you describe will enter a matching gift ONLY when matching gift paperwork is submited from the donor with their actual pledge payment. Donors shouldn't be submitting Matching Gift paperwork to you when they make a pledge as it cannot be submitted - they can only submit matching gift paperwork with payments. At the point the payment is made, if I have matching gift paperwork to submit (and it's a known donor & Matching gift company) I enter the Matching Gift Pledge.

We only enter matching gifts when the paperwork has been received or I have filled out the online registration.  We also have 5 year Capital gifts that we expect/expected matching gifts.  We have not booked those nor do we even count them in the expected gifts.  Many of our matching gift companies have recently stopped their MG program due to the economic times (i.e. Ford, Chrysler, GM), so we are very glad that we were not counting on those $$$$. 

Ditto,  we enter MG when paperwork received /submitted. 

I know our accounting dept would not like having to write off/cancel a long-term MG pledge.  There are just too many uncertainties for us to enter it.  Yes, it will make your $ reports look good for pledges/gifts.  You may wish to talk to your finance people and execs on the pro's and con's for your organization. 

One other thing to look to is your own pledge policies. We are not allowed to book a pledge unless we have documentation signed from a donor. One way to look at this is you never enter matching gift pledges because the matching gift company has not provided you with any documentation saying they are intending to give. The donor may intend to give but they do not speak on behalf of the Matching Gift Company.