What Happened with Gifts in 2015

• View stock/property gift details — Stock/property gifts are contributions of stock certificates, land, or estates, which your organization may opt to keep or sell to benefit your fundraising efforts. On the record of a gift of stock or property, you can now view pertinent details — such as its value when you received and sold it — under Stock/property. For more information, see .

  

• View pledge gift and payment information — Pledges are commitments to donate in the future with a single gift or through multiple installments, such as a gift of $1200 as 12 monthly payments of $100. On the record of a pledged gift, you can now view pertinent details about how much the donor already paid and has left to pay — as well as details about their payment installments — under Pledge summary and Pledge burndown. For more information, see Pledges.

• View batch number for gifts — To quickly enter large groups of gifts, your organization may enter them as batches in the database view. At the top of a gift's record in the web view, you can now view which batch it was entered in. For more information, see Gift Overview.

• View a gift's related corporate matching gifts — Many corporations offer programs that match employees’ donations to eligible nonprofits. On a gift’s record, you can now view details about any related corporate gifts under Matching gifts. For each matching gift, you can view its corporation, how much was pledged or received (and when), and the fund it applied toward. For more information, see Matching Gifts.

  

• View benefits for membership gifts — With Membership Management, you can set up membership programs to encourage donor loyalty. To help incentivize constituents to become members, your organization may offer exclusive benefits — such as reduced admission, t-shirts, or other merchandise — to thank them for their continued support. On the gift record of a membership dues payment, you can now view details about any related incentives under Benefits. For each benefit, you can view how many the member receives, its worth to both you and the member, and when you sent or fulfilled it. For more information, see Membership Benefits.

  

• View a gift's tribute information — With Honor/Memorial Tracking, you can track details about gifts given in honor, memory, or celebration of an individual or organization. From a gift’s record, under Tributes, you can now view who the giving commemorates. For each tribute, you can view the reason for the gift — such as “in honor of” or “for the anniversary of” — and who to notify that you received it (and when). For more information, see Tributes.

  

View notes for a gift — To maintain a complete record of a gift, we recommend you save notes to track details about the giving, such as how you acquired it or any special conditions of its use. With this information, you can learn from effective fundraising tactics and help ensure your organization respects the donor's wishes. On a gift's record, you can now view these details under Notes. For more information, see Notes.

• View custom fields for a gift — On a gift's record, you can view specialized information your organization tracks about the gift — such as its source or whether a reminder for payment was sent — under Custom fields. For each field, you can view its name — or "category" — and value. You can also view when the field was added and comments about its information. For details, see Custom Fields.

  

• Open a gift record linked to a proposal — With Prospect Research Management, you can manage efforts to cultivate relationships and major gift opportunities as proposals and track the gifts received as a result. To open the record of a gift linked to a proposal, you can now select its amount under Proposal funding on the proposal's record. For more information, see Linked Gifts.

• Expand or collapse all information on a gift record — To easily browse a gift's record, you can now select Collapse all or Expand all to quickly hide or show all its information. For other suggestions of how to customize a gift's record to focus on only what matters most, see Records.

• View tracking and marketing codes for gifts — To increase the effectiveness of your fundraising, we recommend you track and analyze how — and why — you acquire each gift you receive. On a gift's record, you can now view the identification numbers and codes used to track the gift and the marketing effort used to acquire it under Gift and marketing codes. For more information, see Gift and Marketing Codes.

• View custom fields in lists of gifts — To view specialized information your organization tracks about a list of gifts, you can now include columns for custom fields. To include a custom field in a list, select Choose columns and choose which details to view under Custom fields.

  Tip: To manage custom fields for gifts, add and track them as attributes on their records in the database view.

• View acknowledgement and receipt details for gifts — When a constituent gives to your organization, it's nice to say thanks and acknowledge their generosity. In addition, to help donors track their giving for tax purposes, you should provide receipts for their gifts. On a gift's record, you can now view details about the acknowledgement letter and receipt the donor receives under Acknowledgements. For more information, see Acknowledgements and Receipts.

• View gift records! — For detailed information about a gift, such as a donation, pledge, or gift-in-kind, you can now select its amount on a record or list to open its record. On the gift's record, you can view many details including its amount, type, donor, and date, as well as the campaigns and funds it applies to, the fundraisers and appeal responsible for its acquisition, additional constituents who receive credit for the giving, and whether it's been acknowledged or posted to the general ledger of your financial accounting system. For more information, see Gift Records.

Overview! Quickly gauge your fundraising performance — To gauge the performance of your fundraising efforts — at a glance — and help plan how to focus your energy, you can now select Overview in Work Center. Under Overview, you can quickly check:

• Your progress toward goal amounts for campaigns, funds, and appeals.

• How many gifts you raised over the current fiscal year, and how many are new or past due.

Under Overview, you can also quickly access lists filtered based on this information, such as to view your new gifts or past due pledges. For more information, see Work Center Overview.

• View gift totals in lists — In lists of gifts, such as in Work Center or from a constituent's record, the Gifts total provides how many gifts the list includes. For clarity, the previous Transactions received total no longer appears. To view how many gifts of a specific type — such as donations and pledge payments — appear in a list, use the Of these types filter to include only those gift types.

• View soft credit details in lists — For clarity, soft credit information now appears more consistently in lists.

  • If you manage relationships with both the donor and soft credit recipient of a gift, it now appears only once in the Gifts list in Work Center. In the Constituent summary column, you can view information about the donor. To view who receives soft credit for a gift, include the Soft credit column.

  • In a constituent's full list of gifts, you can now view the total amount of a gift they receive soft credit for in the Amount column, as in the Gifts list in Work Center. To view how much soft credit the constituent receives for a gift, include the Soft credit column in the list. To view who gave a gift the constituent receives soft credit for, include the new Donor column.

  For more information, see Soft Credits.

• View when the Gifts list updated — In Work Center, you can now view when the Gifts lists last updated. These lists automatically update with new and edited information periodically.

Gift security by fund or constituent code — To help protect donor information, gifts and totals — such as in Work Center or under Giving on a constituent's record — now include only giving you should view based on the funds they apply to or the constituent codes of their donors. For more information about security by fund or constituent code, see Record Security.