How do other organizations record pledges that have conditional requirements? For example, a government entity will not start applying payments to their pledge until we have sent the proper documentation? Just wondering how other organizations handle such occurences. Thanks for any information. Spencer Smith Database Manager Buffalo Bill Historical Center Cody, WY 82414

We get many pledges that have conditional requirements, such as the next instalment won't be paid until such and such a condition has been met. The only place we have found to record this is under the miscellaneous tab of the gift - and we have a type of notepad called condition. It seems to work ok, and if need be we can report on it too.

Thanks Lee, for your response. This is exactly what I needed.

We are not allowed to enter conditional pledges in our database as a 'pledge'. If a gift has restrictions it cannot be recorded as revenue until all restrictions have been met. Our auditors will not allow us to record them as pledges. We can record the payments when they come and we can record their intentions in a campaign/fund/appeal configuration that NEVER gets passed onto accounting and is for internal reasons only (Like government grant tracking)or in a gratis membership. I think it also depends on what the conditions of the pledge are. Laurel Quaintance Friends of Bassett Manager,Fund Development Services Cooperstown, NY 13326 [Email Removed] 'please forgive my typing mistakes!'

We enter the pledges as fund - restricted. This way we know that the pledge is restricted based on conditions. You can also add a note explaining the restriction (conditions)under the miscellaneous tab in the gift record. Cindy Holma American Civil War Center [Email Removed]

Ok - I think I'm getting definitions mixed up... For me, A Conditional Pledge would be something that says we will give you X ($10,000) amount of dollars for five years (Total of $50,000), but every year you need to have met condition Y in order to receive the installment. If it was unconditional - I would normally book this as a Pledge for $50,000 with 5 annual installments. But since this is conditional and the development office can no way ever be responsible for these conditions, then I can only book each $10,000 payment as a cash gift each time it comes in as opposed to 50K revenue the year it was booked. Make sense? A Restricted gift for me would be a FUND or designation of how the funds are to be spent. If we don not have a specific fund set up that meets the designation - I use Annual Fund Restricted and then a gift note. Laurel Quaintance Friends of Bassett Manager,Fund Development Services Cooperstown, NY 13326 [Email Removed] 'please forgive my typing mistakes!'

Even though the pledge is conditional, we book it in RE if we know we can meet the conditions. (i.e. a conditional match, that we are sure we can raise.) Our development office wants to keep close track of these, so for us RE is the best place. We mark them restricted so we have a quick visual when we open the pledge to indicate there are restrictions (conditions) on the pledge. We also use restricted for designations to funds. For us -restricted- doesn't just mean restricted by fund, it could be restricted by condition. Cindy Holma American Civil War Center [Email Removed]

You might want to consider a Stewardship Reporting Date Attribute on the pledge and use the RE:Mail/Reminder module to pull all grants/pledges each month with the selected attribute(s). We run our campaign pledge reminders that way because we only want to send reminders in the month the constituent originally requested, even though many pledge payments are well overdue. Kathleen
The Bryn Mawr School
[Email Removed]

More on Conditional - If it's a condition our Development office can guarantee. We will book the pledge. If it is not, we can't book it. - I'll give you an example of Conditional versus restricted in our operation. Conditional Pledge: $50,000 - $10,000 a year for every year your Heart Care Institute serves 100 or more patients. As you can see, this is not a condition any development office has control over. If the institute only sees 100 or more patients in 2 years - that would be $30,000 in bad debt to your organization if you had recorded this as revenue. Restricted Gift: $5,000 for a specific piece of equipment in the Cancer Clinic. Does this make more sense? Laurel Quaintance Friends of Bassett Manager,Fund Development Services Cooperstown, NY 13326 [Email Removed] 'please forgive my typing mistakes!'