I would like to know how some of you are entering Charitable Gift Annuities and Charitable Remainder Trust into Raiser's Edge. We are currently recording them as Gift Type Other, with the subtype of what is it, then we record the market value for the Gift Amount and the IRS deduction for the receipt amount. There are some reports where I need to capture the receipt amount and I'm not able to. How are some of you doing this? We are currently not using the Planned Giving Module, those of you using it, would you recommend it? What are the pros and cons of the module?? Thanks,

Christie M. Blair
Manager of Support Services
St. Mary Medical Center Foundation
Langhorne, PA

We enter our GAs and CRUTs as cash gifts with a gift subtype, using the Receipt Amt field for the charitable deduction/present value. What you describe IS a problem for users who use RE's canned reports - there are a few of the reports where you can add the receipt amount, but the reports only show the amount in another column and they don't total that column (I have no idea why - it makes no sense). We do most of our reporting in MS Access using the output from queries and exports, so this isn't an issue for us. Catherine Catherine Seebald Director of Advancement Services Houghton College One Willard Ave. Houghton, NY 14744 585-567-9395 [Email Removed]

This organization has tried many different ways in capturing planned gifts (I've been here less than a year). Not many worked too well until we got the planned gift module. Although the PG module works pretty well when you need to report on funds and remainder values, it doesn't really satisfy all needs. The good thing, it doesn't count money until a check is received in your financial reports. The problem with the PG module is that when the donation is actually received, you have to go into the PG and click "received", but you also have to add the gift as a cash gift - so there are technically two steps in order to make your financial reports correct. It also can double counted money if you aren't careful - we count PG's as money "raised" in our FY, so when the cash comes in you could count it again. The record reflects the PG and the cash gift, but doesn't link them as one in the same. All in all, it sounds like it could work for you, but Blackbaud still has some work to do on this module to make it work better financially.