I have a couple of pledges where multiple individuals in a hospital department are going together on a large pledge, however, each employee has made their own individual pledge amount with matching gifts to be applied, but the total pledge for the department must be tracked for naming rights and pledge reports.  I have entered multiple pledges under one constituent for one pledge - which is kind of a problem to keep track of, so the next one I soft credited back to the department.  Does anyone have any suggestions on best practices for this situation?

You could enter one pledge under the department and then apply payments by individuals.  When you enter the payment, you click on "New Gift" and then click on "Gift" on the toolbar at the top.  Then click on "Apply to" and then "Load Pledges From."  Then you select the department.  The individual's gift will be on his/her record but will be applied to the department's pledge.

As an educational institution with two sponsoring religious denominations, part of our current capital campaign has included pledges from congregations. Often, individuals within those congregations make smaller pledges in support of their congregation's committment.

To ensure that I can keep track of the individual's pledge and yet not count the money twice, I have invented some gift attributes:

  - Church Pledge To: this is where I record the name of the congregation that the individual's pledge supports

   - Pledge amount to church: this is where I record the amount that the individual has pledge

When a gift arrives from such an individual, I apply it to the overall congregational pledge and attach the Church Pledge To attribute so that I can find it when it is time to send individual pledge reminder letters.

It's hard to say what would work best for you; however, I would try to use the same method for this situation at all times. In this case, I would probably set up the hospital department as an organization. I would set up individual relationships for each member of the department to the organization. These individuals would all be constituents. I would set up each person's pledge on his/her constituent record. Each of these people are responsible for his/her individual pledge. I don't know what type of reporting you have to do on this exactly. There would probably be another component that I would use - either the event module, actions, attribute, I'm not sure, as it would depend on the appeal. If the constituents are truly only managed at the business address, you could use that as their preferred address and print that on the reports. It's difficult sometimes, but it is often the exception that forces the rule. For instance, you may need to track the naming rights and you would think that it is easy to do on a constituent record or even gift record. However, when you think about having to track a group's naming record, you may wish to use the event module. You could register the organization as the registrant and purchase "units" for each "guest". Again, this is all just speculation. Each situation is unique. My main objective is to keep it as close to possible as the database is written. In other words, use the correct fields when you can. Also, don't make different solutions for each situation. The exception has got to fit the rule. I hope this helps and good luck!

 Nora