Accounting seems to want to use the event as a 'fund', but wouldn't it be an appeal, as this is source-how-raised?
Just curious to know what everyone thinks!

David

It can be one the other or both.

It is not uncommon to have a special fund for an event.  It is not always done this way but if Finance wants it, Finance gets it.

Some events may have one appeal that match it (Gala invitation) but others may have several appeals that all go to that fund (Gala corp sponsorship packet, Gala auction item appeal letter, Gala invitation, gala e-invite, etc.)

I agree with you that the appeal should be how the money was raised. Unfortunately, many of ours are set up as funds with the event and year as the fund name, ex: Golf 08 . I am not clear on why the decision was made to do it that way, but for now, I just have to follow along. Our accountant agrees with me that a fund is where the money goes, so I can only guess it has more to do with someone wanting it to be easy for the untrained person to gather the totals using fund instead of appeal.

David,

My organization is enter as an Appeal, then the Appeal is linked to the primary fund - However, the Appeal is the source, but the donor can still restrict to whichever fund they want.

 I.E. Money raised through our Annual Regatta - Appeal: 08 Evt Ragatta - Fund: Restricted to Bereavement Progarm - Campaign: '08 Annual Campaign

 Hope this helps,

Monica Biondo

Avow Hospice

Our organization uses as the event as an appeal.

The campaign is events and then the fund depends on where the money is going.

i.e. Our 125th anniversary is Events Campaign, General Development Events Fund, 125th appeal

i.e. Our To Live Forever event has two parts, a VIP party and an After party
     The VIP is: Events Campaign, CG Event Fund, To Live Forever appeal
     The After party is: Events Campaign, Membership Event Fund, To Live Forever appeal

 This method works really well for us.

It can be either depending on if the event is a budgeted event your organization routinely holds. We hold an annual budgeted New Year's Eve gala that has a sit down dinner with bands, fireworks, etc. as well as a couple of related silent auctions (pre gala and during gala) I build each of these events in the Event module. The 'gifts' entered to theses events depend on what they are and what the proceeds are being collected for. Fund thinking example -  we don't hold events to 'pay for' events - we hold events to raise money for our cause therefore the Fund is the 'cause' (Heart Care, Cancer, etc.)

Now, several types of gifts can come in for our event: Sponsorships, Reservations, Silent Auction Item Purchases, & Straight Donations.

Where I make the further deliniations are Campaign - If the Gift has anything to do with Goods & Services (Sponsors, Reservations, Auction Items) I have a Goods & Services Campaign - If it's a Straight donation it goes to the Campaign associted with the Fund (the Cause)

 The appeals for this event are: NYE Corporate Sponsor (which autoloads the Goods & Services Campaign & the Fund) NYE Reservation, (which autoloads the Goods & Services Campaign & the Fund) NYE Auction Item (which autoloads the Goods & Services Campaign & the Fund) & NYE Misc. Donation (which autoloads the Normal Campaign & the Fund)

All of these gifts are then linked to the event they are for (Registration fees or donations) and receipt values calculated.

 Hope this helps.

Accounting departments may ask you to corral funds into a 'special' event specific account if an event wasn't budgeted for so they can collect the monies, pay expenses out of the account and then transfer the remaining net proceeds to the 'Cause' Fund on their end afterwards.

Our organization has a fund for each event, but this decision was not driven from a RE perspective. Rather, it's the only way Finance can report out expense detail for a specific event. If all events were lumped into one fund, it would be very cumbersome for them to detail which expense related to which event.

We have a campaign called "events" for each fiscal year. That way, if someone wants to know how much we raised from events, we can get a quick summary at the campaign level.

 Depending on the event, we may have more than one appeal. For a large event with several mailings, there are multiple appeals (eg, "Save the Date", "Invitation", "Sponsorship Package." Simpler events have only 1 appeal.

Hi David,

 We set up events as appeals that benefit a particular fund. For example, we have an annual car raffle and tuition raffle that benefits our gym renovations. We set it up as follows:

Campaign: Building Campaign

Appeal: Car Raffle 20XX (or Tuition Raffle 20XX)

Fund: Gym Renovation

 You can have a number of different appeals that come under the same campaign but funnel into a particular fund. When we have paid off our loan for the gym renovations, we plan to build a Theology Center and will use a car and tuition raffle as two of the fundraising events. Here is how that would look:

Campaign: Building Campaign

Appeal: Car Raffle 20XX (or Tuition Raffle 20XX)

Fund: Theology Center

 Hope this helps.

Nancy Gastelum

If no one is preventing you from doing this, why not enter the event as a fund, to satisfy accounting, AND as an appeal for Development purposes.

Then initiate a discussion about how it SHOULD be done, with appeals tracking how the gift came in and funds tracking which pot the money went into.

Steve Walsh

David O'Brien:

Accounting seems to want to use the event as a 'fund', but wouldn't it be an appeal, as this is source-how-raised?
Just curious to know what everyone thinks!

David

We use the Appeal to tell us where the money came from or which event the money is linked to. We have an annual Dinner Dance and Auction and we get money from Sponsors, Attendees, Raffle ets. So we code them DD2008Sponsor, DD2008Att, or DD2008Raffle.

Hope this helps a little bit...

Interesting discussion.  Here's how we've set up our events (which are typically in-home get togethers to share our mission):

 The FUND is accounting/finance department driven.  In this case, it's our Major Donor program.

The APPEAL is the DOEV09 (Donor Events FY 2009).

And THEN we use a PACKAGE:  the package would reflect the name of the host.  So, we might use SMITH as the package, to indicate John Smith as the event host.  Ultimately what this does is to allow us to use assigned appeals as a tracking device for who was invited, who attended and who gave.  It's pretty useful this way.

Jane Sanders, Director of Membership & Planned Gifts, Compassion & Choices

Our organization has 14 division offices, each who has a unique numerical code assigned to them.  We use the following format:

Campaign = Div#-Annual08-09 (new one created each fiscal year so that we can track goals, etc.)

Fund = GL Code from Finance where the revenue goes (i.e. Special Events revenue, General contribution, etc.)

Appeal = Div#-EventName (or other appeal, i.e. mailing, etc.).  We then use packages under the appeals for the various things linked to that particular appeal.  For example, an appeal set up for an event might have packages each for Sponsorships, Auction, Ticket Sales, etc.

Each gift record has Campaign, Fund, and Appeal as required fields.  Package is optional, but encouraged!

This method works well for us, as we can report from a division level for their needs or report by Fund (GL Code) to satisfy Finance.

Hope this helps!

Hello my friend!  We do almost the same thing with our events.

 The Fund is the event and year of the event - Golf 09

The Appeal is what within golf brought the money and the year...for example sponsorship, raffle ticket, silent auction, oral auction, sponsor a family

This makes running a quick revenue report easier because you don't have to use a date range for the gift - just the appeal code since it changes each year.

 Hope this helps!