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  • 1.  Benevity and the like

    Posted 01-23-2020 01:15 PM
    Hi - I am pretty new to the Advancement world having spent most of the last 25 years in finance and IT.  We receive money from benevity which is net of the donor's actual donation.  The process has been to give benevity hard credit for the net amount and then send the donor an acknowledgement for their full amount.  I believe this is not good practice, but I am not sure what the proper flow should be.  Do we soft credit the donor, but for what amount?  Since benevity issues the tax receipt to the donor should be just send an acknowledgement with no amount?  I also thought about giving Benevity hard credit for the gross amount, soft credit to the donor for the gross amount and journal entry the fees to bank fees.  Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.​

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    Karen Lucas
    Dir of Advancement Information & Data Analytics
    Roger Williams University
    klucas@rwu.edu
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  • 2.  RE: Benevity and the like

    Posted 01-23-2020 01:18 PM

    We treat Benevity like a DAF. We hard credit Benevity for the full amount of the gift, soft credit the actual donor for the full amount of the gift, and write off the fee as a COB. We do not correspond with Benevity at all, but send a "thank you for making possible the recent gift from Benevity in the amount of..."  to the person but we include no tax language, and we do not send a receipt – it's purely a thank you letter.

     

    Carol Nash

    Advancement Coordinator and Database Manager

    The Awty International School

    7455 Awty School Lane  |  Houston, Texas 77055

    Direct: 713-328-5861  |  www.awty.org

     

    image010.jpg@01D43F65.033811C0

     

    Houston's Premier International School

     

     

     




    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Benevity and the like

    Posted 01-23-2020 04:21 PM
    Hi Karen,

    Benevity is not a DAF or a direct donor. They're a company that uses a donor-advised fund sponsored by the America Online Giving Foundation (a public charity) to manage disbursements in the US. The fund is called the Benevity Community Impact Fund. It's not the same as the Benevity company, and your records should reflect that.

    That said, you should treat this like any other DAF gift. Hard-credit the DAF, soft-credit the donor naming the amount of recognition you're giving, and nobody gets a tax receipt.

    How much you should soft-credit the donor is a bit of an open question - should it be the full amount they gave benvity, or just the portion you receive? But you should be consistent and use the same policy for all your DAF donor soft-credits. If you search the forum for Benevity, you'll see a thread about this from Jan 7 that's worth looking at to consider the question of how to account for the fees. 


    Thank you,
    Isaac Shalev
    CRM Expert
    Sage70, Inc.
    (917) 859-0151
    isaac@sage70.com

    Schedule a 30-minute consultation now:




    Original Message


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