Contents - Index

Pledges     (Requires the purchase of the Pledge Tracking module)

A pledge is when a donor promises to give a certain amount over a certain period of time.  For example you have a pledge period of three years.  During that time each donor will give an amount annually, semi-annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly or twice a month (on the 15th and end of the month; also called bi-monthly).  This frequency can also be a multiple of a month or a week.

In Donarius® you indicate the number of years the pledge period is and how often a donor will give.  The date that you enter the pledge is considered the start of the pledge period.  For example you enter a pledge on Jan 1, 2014 that will last three years.  The pledge period will run from Jan 1, 2014 to Dec 31, 2016.  Click here to find out how to enter pledges.

Pledges are shown on tax receipts and quarterly statements.  Both the amount pledged and the amount actually given are shown.  Quarterly statements also show how much each person must give to fulfill their pledge.  Sometimes the amount needed to be given seems too big.  For example a person has promised to give $50 a month and the quarterly statement indicates that they have gave $50 a month but it says that they should give $100 more.  This is because pledges owing from previous years may also included in the amount needed to fulfill the pledge.  Since the person may have not paid two months during a previous year, the quarterly statement will still show that they need to give $100. This can be changed by going to the Setup menu, choosing Preferences and unchecking: Carry pledges owing forward.

Please be aware that when someone pledges weekly, the total pledged and given for the year could be 53 times the weekly amount.  This will happen when Jan 1st is the day you normally accept donations. Then each person will give 53 times that year.

You may want to mail a reminder letter to donors who have not fulfilled their pledges.  You print labels/envelopes for those donors as well as a reminder letter.  The letter can include how much the person should give to fulfill their pledge.  There is a sample reminder letter included.  (Choose Reminder as the letter to view in the View Letters window.)

When showing who is falling short of fulfilling their pledge and how much they owe, you have a choice of showing it two ways:

a) Show the amount the person owes only for a complete pledge interval.  For example: in the above three year pledge period you may want to do a mailing to those who fall short as of June 30, 2016.  Only those donors who fall short and have promised to give weekly, twice a month, monthly, semi-annually or quarterly will be given a reminder.  The yearly donors still have until Dec 31 to fulfill their pledge so they would not get a reminder yet.  When you send out your final reminder you should give an "as of" date of the last day of the pledge period (Dec 31, 2016).  You would probably do this sometime in Jan 2017 to give donors time to make their final donation.
b) Show the fraction of the amount owed so far.  For example, suppose you are sending a reminder letter for what is owed as of Sept 30th.  A donor who pledged to give yearly will be considered to owe 3/4 of their yearly pledge. (9 months out of 12 is 3/4).

The way the amount owing is shown, depends on how you usually do your pledge reports.  If you usually choose Show entire pledge for the year then the amount owing will be shown as in a).  If you usually choose Show fraction of pledge expected in date range then the amount owing will be as in b).

You may want to use a different word to indicate pledges on your reports.  Enter a word with a similar meaning on the organization info window, where it says Pledge synonym:.  You should enter it as a present tense verb. For example: promise, commit or est.giving (estimate giving)  The word you enter must be 10 characters or less so that it will fit in the pledge column on tax receipts and quarterly statements.





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